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High-angle rescue: How to execute mid-height pick offDalan ZartmanWed, 17 Dec 2014 16:33:30 UTCIn light of the recent rescue that FDNY performed, I thought it would be a great opportunity to discuss some of the techniques available when confronted with these types of scenarios. There are some universal concepts that apply to both natural and man-made environments.

There are many reasons a victim is trapped at mid height: gear malfunctions or failures, injuries resulting from falling debris, medical emergencies, etc. The first series of variables is what is supporting the victim's load. There are two basic variables.

First, the victim is rigged or supported by a dynamic system (meaning it can move). This can simply be a rope or ropes as in the case of a climber, person rappelling, or a would-be rescuer.

It also can be an industrial application such as window washers or maintenance personnel on a cable-and-winch system or a ladder-based climbing system. In all of these examples, the assumption is that the system supporting these victims is under tension and carrying their load.

Second, the victim is supported by something static (meaning it is a fixed object or support system). This can simply be a ledge or window opening. It also can be a working platform upon which he may be safety rigged but do not have tension on his personal rigging.

In these examples, the assumption is that these victims are captured through gravity but are somewhat free to move minimally and their position at height is not under loaded tension.

First steps As we approach these scenarios we must assess the condition of the victim and the cause of the predicament. As we gather information regarding the cause, we will learn whether or not we can use the existing system or develop a new one.

This can radically shape the action plan.

If the victim is suspended by a cable-and-winch system that is safety compliant and intact and the victim is having a medical emergency, then using the existing system (provided rescuers can operate it) may provide the most effective solution.

However, if the victim was rappelling and suffered a gear failure, we will have to develop a complete high-angle system to accomplish the rescue.

If the victim is suspended on a loaded or tension system, we will have to bring gear that will allow us to transfer the victim from his system onto the rescue system.

As we refine our action plan and draw conclusions from these assessments, there is one final challenge to consider. What is the best approach for access and rescue.

Reaching the victim In these events, we may have crews above the victim, at the victim, and or below the victim. All of these options will shape the systems we select and how we deploy them.

A victim who is on a ledge in a cave, ravine or gorge will most likely require a hauling system to bring the victim up. This will require a lower haul system with a high directional.

It may also require bottom side crews to develop a tensioning track line or tensioned track line depending on the placement and height of the directional as well as the terrain features.

A victim who is trapped on the side of a water tower or hydropillar may only require topside anchoring and a rescuer who descends to the victim, packages, and then descends to ground.

A victim trapped at height that can be directly or proximally reached through a nearby window or platform may only require top-side safety systems to be rigged so the victim can be safely moved from the compromised position to an accessible position. The recent FDNY rescue was a good example of this application.

As always, the objective is to make the right choices to achieve the most optimal outcome for the victim and the rescuers. Do not over-rescue. With that said, here are the tangible points of rigging to perform a pick off of a stranded mid-height victim.

Load transfer This is when the victim is suspended on loaded rope or cable. Establish a belay line and moving brake line. Some organizations may elect to establish a fixed brake line in which the rescuer is lowered, but I have found that this application requires very finite communications and often results in miscues between the rescuer and the lowering team.

Conversely, the moving brake requires an experienced rescuer who is adept at rappelling and rigging. This should be the case, though, because pick offs are a level II skill.

Pre-rig the belay line for victim attachment. Put a knot, typically a figure eight on a bite, into the end of the belay line and attach it to the accessory loop on the rescuers harness with a screw link. This knot will be attached to the victim when the rescuer gains access to him.

I prefer the link to a carabineer because it can easily get side loaded during the pick off process and insures a higher safety factor. I avoid tying a knot into the victim's harness because it can be time consuming compared with attaching a link or similar connecting hardware.

Once the knot is established, measure approximately one arm's length and tie a midline knot; butterfly is acceptable here. This midline knot is the attachment point for the rescuer.

Pick-off straps Rig in a pick-off strap or self-minding short-haul system. Attach this element to the eye of the rescuer's brake bar rack or other descent control device. It is important that this device eventually carry the load of the victim directly to the main line and not to the rescuer.

Pick-off straps have a U and a V attachment. The U goes to the rescuer's rack or lowering line knot and the V gets attached to the victim. It is a good practice to make these attachments with screw links for the reasons previously mentioned.

Self-minding short-haul systems are typically 4-1 or 5-1 ratio systems with capturing cams or progress capture devices that self set. These systems will provide the rescuer with an added capability to haul the victim up a short distance.

Some of these systems come in small packs and can be carried down by the rescuer and deployed when needed. Pre-attaching will help speed up the rescue and may reduce potential rigging errors.

At the victim Rappel or descend down to the victim. Stop descending and lock off when the rescuers hips are at the same height as the victim's head. This positioning is crucial to ensure that the transferring devices have appropriate spacing to be reached and operated.

Attach the belay line to the victim and the pick-off strap or short-haul system. I find that inverting at this point can greatly increase the efficiency of the rescuer. Inverting allows the rescuer to maximize her reach and use both hands.

Haul the victim up or pull tension on the pick-off strap until the load has transferred from the victim's line to the implement you have applied. When using a pick-off strap, the load usually cannot fully transfer because not enough force can be generated by simply pulling the strap.

This requires the victim's loaded descent-control device to be operated in a controlled manner until slack is developed. This is where short-haul systems will pay dividends. When the transfer is complete, disconnect any remaining unnecessary victim lines to reduce entanglements.

The victim should be oriented just below the rescuer and the pick-off strap or the short-haul system should be between the rescuers legs. If working on a wall, coach the victim to keep his arms crossed around his rigging so that he doesn't grab the rescuer's legs.

When the rescuer's legs are grabbed, they lose foot contact with the wall both parties end up riding the wall. If not working on a wall, rescuers may direct the victim to grab their extended legs to prevent rotating or spinning independently of one another.

When preparing to descend or rappel to the ground, remember that an extra load has been picked up and the previous level of friction on the descent-control device will not be appropriate.

No load transfer When the victim is static and not attached to tensioned lines, all of the steps are the same with the exception of transferring lines. This means we simply access the victim, attach the belay and pick-off strap, pull out slack and ease off the static platform.

This is a much more simplistic pick off, but often requires more packaging. These victims often do not have harnesses and require rescuers to put one on them. These victims also may be significantly injured.

This will require basket packaging and a lowering system on the top side with the rescuer transition to a tender. We will save that for another column.

Pick offs require a lot of repetition and are a high-risk rigging event. Watch the video to help drive the material home and then get out there and do it.

Remember you can statically go through the rigging progressions out in the bay so rep it out and be ready. Train hard.

]]>In light of the recent rescue that FDNY performed, I thought it would be a great opportunity to discuss some of the techniques available when confronted with these types of scenarios. There are some universal concepts that apply to both natural and man-made environments.

There are many reasons a victim is trapped at mid height: gear malfunctions or failures, injuries resulting from falling debris, medical emergencies, etc. The first series of variables is what is supporting the victim's load. There are two basic variables.

First, the victim is rigged or supported by a dynamic system (meaning it can move). This can simply be a rope or ropes as in the case of a climber, person rappelling, or a would-be rescuer.

It also can be an industrial application such as window washers or maintenance personnel on a cable-and-winch system or a ladder-based climbing system. In all of these examples, the assumption is that the system supporting these victims is under tension and carrying their load.

Second, the victim is supported by something static (meaning it is a fixed object or support system). This can simply be a ledge or window opening. It also can be a working platform upon which he may be safety rigged but do not have tension on his personal rigging.

In these examples, the assumption is that these victims are captured through gravity but are somewhat free to move minimally and their position at height is not under loaded tension.

First steps As we approach these scenarios we must assess the condition of the victim and the cause of the predicament. As we gather information regarding the cause, we will learn whether or not we can use the existing system or develop a new one.

This can radically shape the action plan.

If the victim is suspended by a cable-and-winch system that is safety compliant and intact and the victim is having a medical emergency, then using the existing system (provided rescuers can operate it) may provide the most effective solution.

However, if the victim was rappelling and suffered a gear failure, we will have to develop a complete high-angle system to accomplish the rescue.

If the victim is suspended on a loaded or tension system, we will have to bring gear that will allow us to transfer the victim from his system onto the rescue system.

As we refine our action plan and draw conclusions from these assessments, there is one final challenge to consider. What is the best approach for access and rescue.

Reaching the victim In these events, we may have crews above the victim, at the victim, and or below the victim. All of these options will shape the systems we select and how we deploy them.

A victim who is on a ledge in a cave, ravine or gorge will most likely require a hauling system to bring the victim up. This will require a lower haul system with a high directional.

It may also require bottom side crews to develop a tensioning track line or tensioned track line depending on the placement and height of the directional as well as the terrain features.

A victim who is trapped on the side of a water tower or hydropillar may only require topside anchoring and a rescuer who descends to the victim, packages, and then descends to ground.

A victim trapped at height that can be directly or proximally reached through a nearby window or platform may only require top-side safety systems to be rigged so the victim can be safely moved from the compromised position to an accessible position. The recent FDNY rescue was a good example of this application.

As always, the objective is to make the right choices to achieve the most optimal outcome for the victim and the rescuers. Do not over-rescue. With that said, here are the tangible points of rigging to perform a pick off of a stranded mid-height victim.

Load transfer This is when the victim is suspended on loaded rope or cable. Establish a belay line and moving brake line. Some organizations may elect to establish a fixed brake line in which the rescuer is lowered, but I have found that this application requires very finite communications and often results in miscues between the rescuer and the lowering team.

Conversely, the moving brake requires an experienced rescuer who is adept at rappelling and rigging. This should be the case, though, because pick offs are a level II skill.

Pre-rig the belay line for victim attachment. Put a knot, typically a figure eight on a bite, into the end of the belay line and attach it to the accessory loop on the rescuers harness with a screw link. This knot will be attached to the victim when the rescuer gains access to him.

I prefer the link to a carabineer because it can easily get side loaded during the pick off process and insures a higher safety factor. I avoid tying a knot into the victim's harness because it can be time consuming compared with attaching a link or similar connecting hardware.

Once the knot is established, measure approximately one arm's length and tie a midline knot; butterfly is acceptable here. This midline knot is the attachment point for the rescuer.

Pick-off straps Rig in a pick-off strap or self-minding short-haul system. Attach this element to the eye of the rescuer's brake bar rack or other descent control device. It is important that this device eventually carry the load of the victim directly to the main line and not to the rescuer.

Pick-off straps have a U and a V attachment. The U goes to the rescuer's rack or lowering line knot and the V gets attached to the victim. It is a good practice to make these attachments with screw links for the reasons previously mentioned.

Self-minding short-haul systems are typically 4-1 or 5-1 ratio systems with capturing cams or progress capture devices that self set. These systems will provide the rescuer with an added capability to haul the victim up a short distance.

Some of these systems come in small packs and can be carried down by the rescuer and deployed when needed. Pre-attaching will help speed up the rescue and may reduce potential rigging errors.

At the victim Rappel or descend down to the victim. Stop descending and lock off when the rescuers hips are at the same height as the victim's head. This positioning is crucial to ensure that the transferring devices have appropriate spacing to be reached and operated.

Attach the belay line to the victim and the pick-off strap or short-haul system. I find that inverting at this point can greatly increase the efficiency of the rescuer. Inverting allows the rescuer to maximize her reach and use both hands.

Haul the victim up or pull tension on the pick-off strap until the load has transferred from the victim's line to the implement you have applied. When using a pick-off strap, the load usually cannot fully transfer because not enough force can be generated by simply pulling the strap.

This requires the victim's loaded descent-control device to be operated in a controlled manner until slack is developed. This is where short-haul systems will pay dividends. When the transfer is complete, disconnect any remaining unnecessary victim lines to reduce entanglements.

The victim should be oriented just below the rescuer and the pick-off strap or the short-haul system should be between the rescuers legs. If working on a wall, coach the victim to keep his arms crossed around his rigging so that he doesn't grab the rescuer's legs.

When the rescuer's legs are grabbed, they lose foot contact with the wall both parties end up riding the wall. If not working on a wall, rescuers may direct the victim to grab their extended legs to prevent rotating or spinning independently of one another.

When preparing to descend or rappel to the ground, remember that an extra load has been picked up and the previous level of friction on the descent-control device will not be appropriate.

No load transfer When the victim is static and not attached to tensioned lines, all of the steps are the same with the exception of transferring lines. This means we simply access the victim, attach the belay and pick-off strap, pull out slack and ease off the static platform.

This is a much more simplistic pick off, but often requires more packaging. These victims often do not have harnesses and require rescuers to put one on them. These victims also may be significantly injured.

This will require basket packaging and a lowering system on the top side with the rescuer transition to a tender. We will save that for another column.

Pick offs require a lot of repetition and are a high-risk rigging event. Watch the video to help drive the material home and then get out there and do it.

Remember you can statically go through the rigging progressions out in the bay so rep it out and be ready. Train hard.

]]>Fire chief saves child, earns F-16 rideFireRescue1 StaffMon, 9 Jul 2012 08:52:53 UTCAt two or three Gs, the pilot told him in the pre-flight briefing, it will feel like you are wrestling a couple of guys but holding your own. At five Gs, you'll feel like you are losing the fight and at 9 Gs nothing moves — wherever something is, that's where it stays. They went over the procedures to eject if something went very wrong.

This was part of several hours of pre-flight instruction that Hobart, Ind., Fire Chief Brian Taylor went through prior to his 45-minute flight in an Air Force F-16 last week. The flight was in honor of him being named Hometown Hero at neighboring Gary, Ind. air show, following a dramatic rescue late last year.

Hobart is city of less than 30,000 residents that's mostly residential with a sprinkling of retail and light industry. The fire department operates out of three stations and carries a crew of 52 career firefighters. Last year the department responded to 3,650 calls, which includes ALS ambulance runs.

The fire One of those calls came on Dec. 10, where Chief Taylor was the second to arrive on scene at mutual-aid call for a single-family residential structure fire. A mother and her two young children were inside. The initial report was that the mother was gone, one child had been found and the other was still missing.

"On arrival I had no intention of doing anything but command," Taylor said. "Anybody with kids knows that all rules go out the window."

Chief Taylor has three children.

One side of the house was fully involved and largely destroyed. Chief Taylor entered the structure to find the child — without his SCBA. He knew better; he's a 19-year veteran about to celebrate his second anniversary as fire chief.

"I didn't take the proper steps," he said. Tunnel vision had gotten the better of him, and part way into the structure he feared he might have gotten himself in trouble.

Fortunately, Chief Taylor's left-hand search yielded the room with the child. He was lying on the floor near the bed. Chief Taylor ran with the child to a waiting ambulance (see the accompanying video).

"He wasn't breathing and had been in there for a significant amount of time," Chief Taylor said. "He's a miracle."

It was his first save and he regularly visited the child in the hospital. The doctors warned him that situations like this typically ended badly. But against the odds, the child's condition continued to improve.

That save is what landed Chief Taylor on the Hometown Hero radar and ultimately in the seat of the Thunderbird's F-16.

Pulling 9 Gs During the pre-flight briefing, pilot Lt. Col. Jason Koltes, used a model of the plane to demonstrate what they would be doing in the air. Pulling 9 Gs takes a lot out of a person not used to it; Koltes told Chief Taylor to expect to be very tired the next day.

"It was incredible," he said after the flight. "It was so much more than I anticipated; the sheer power of that aircraft is awesome."

As thrilling as the ride was, it was important to Chief Taylor that a firefighter had been selected as the Hometown Hero.

"This was more of an honor for the fire service than for me personally," Chief Taylor said. "The fire service tends to experience a lack of recognition that it deserves. Over time, a community becomes complacent and views its fire department as an insurance policy."

The lift-assist calls won't be splashed across the news like was his rescue, or even his F-16 ride, but it means the world to that person who needs the help, he said.

Near miss In the end it all worked out — the children and Chief Taylor made it out of the fire and pilot eject mechanisms on the F-16 went unused. And whether Lt. Col. Koltes learned anything from their flight is unknown, but Chief Taylor learned plenty from that December fire.

In addition to learning to keep tunnel vision in check, he learned that his and neighboring departments had problems with primary search, accountability and command structure.

Since that fire, Chief Taylor and the neighboring chiefs have met to go over the incident and how they can improve their response at future mutual-aid incidents. Additionally, they've held joint department trainings to allow the firefighters to get to know and get used to working with one another.

And while Chief Taylor paid close attention to the instructions on how the body behaves at 9 Gs, so too has he paid attentions to the lessons from a fatal fire.

]]>At two or three Gs, the pilot told him in the pre-flight briefing, it will feel like you are wrestling a couple of guys but holding your own. At five Gs, you'll feel like you are losing the fight and at 9 Gs nothing moves — wherever something is, that's where it stays. They went over the procedures to eject if something went very wrong.

This was part of several hours of pre-flight instruction that Hobart, Ind., Fire Chief Brian Taylor went through prior to his 45-minute flight in an Air Force F-16 last week. The flight was in honor of him being named Hometown Hero at neighboring Gary, Ind. air show, following a dramatic rescue late last year.

Hobart is city of less than 30,000 residents that's mostly residential with a sprinkling of retail and light industry. The fire department operates out of three stations and carries a crew of 52 career firefighters. Last year the department responded to 3,650 calls, which includes ALS ambulance runs.

The fire One of those calls came on Dec. 10, where Chief Taylor was the second to arrive on scene at mutual-aid call for a single-family residential structure fire. A mother and her two young children were inside. The initial report was that the mother was gone, one child had been found and the other was still missing.

"On arrival I had no intention of doing anything but command," Taylor said. "Anybody with kids knows that all rules go out the window."

Chief Taylor has three children.

One side of the house was fully involved and largely destroyed. Chief Taylor entered the structure to find the child — without his SCBA. He knew better; he's a 19-year veteran about to celebrate his second anniversary as fire chief.

"I didn't take the proper steps," he said. Tunnel vision had gotten the better of him, and part way into the structure he feared he might have gotten himself in trouble.

Fortunately, Chief Taylor's left-hand search yielded the room with the child. He was lying on the floor near the bed. Chief Taylor ran with the child to a waiting ambulance (see the accompanying video).

"He wasn't breathing and had been in there for a significant amount of time," Chief Taylor said. "He's a miracle."

It was his first save and he regularly visited the child in the hospital. The doctors warned him that situations like this typically ended badly. But against the odds, the child's condition continued to improve.

That save is what landed Chief Taylor on the Hometown Hero radar and ultimately in the seat of the Thunderbird's F-16.

Pulling 9 Gs During the pre-flight briefing, pilot Lt. Col. Jason Koltes, used a model of the plane to demonstrate what they would be doing in the air. Pulling 9 Gs takes a lot out of a person not used to it; Koltes told Chief Taylor to expect to be very tired the next day.

"It was incredible," he said after the flight. "It was so much more than I anticipated; the sheer power of that aircraft is awesome."

As thrilling as the ride was, it was important to Chief Taylor that a firefighter had been selected as the Hometown Hero.

"This was more of an honor for the fire service than for me personally," Chief Taylor said. "The fire service tends to experience a lack of recognition that it deserves. Over time, a community becomes complacent and views its fire department as an insurance policy."

The lift-assist calls won't be splashed across the news like was his rescue, or even his F-16 ride, but it means the world to that person who needs the help, he said.

Near miss In the end it all worked out — the children and Chief Taylor made it out of the fire and pilot eject mechanisms on the F-16 went unused. And whether Lt. Col. Koltes learned anything from their flight is unknown, but Chief Taylor learned plenty from that December fire.

In addition to learning to keep tunnel vision in check, he learned that his and neighboring departments had problems with primary search, accountability and command structure.

Since that fire, Chief Taylor and the neighboring chiefs have met to go over the incident and how they can improve their response at future mutual-aid incidents. Additionally, they've held joint department trainings to allow the firefighters to get to know and get used to working with one another.

And while Chief Taylor paid close attention to the instructions on how the body behaves at 9 Gs, so too has he paid attentions to the lessons from a fatal fire.

]]>Top 3 products you can't get in the US — yetMike McEvoy Sponsored by MasimoMon, 22 Oct 2012 16:40:56 UTCThree interesting products were demonstrated at the European Resuscitation Council 2012 Congress in Vienna, Austria, last week. They are all so brand-new that they're not even available in the U.S. yet.

Physio-Control based out of Redmond, Wash., unveiled its newest product, TrueCPR, a standalone CPR feedback device designed to provide rescuers with real-time feedback on chest compression depth, rate and quality. TrueCPR utilizes Triaxial Field Induction (TFI), a magnetic technology that overcomes erroneous overreporting of compression depth from devices currently on the market when used on a mattress or stretcher. Physio-Control expects to launch TrueCPR in Europe shortly and in the U.S. in 2013.

RhinoChill, a unique therapeutic hypothermia induction device, was on display by Benechill International, from Wallisellen, Switzerland. Designed for initial induction of therapeutic hypothermia in the pre-hospital environment, RhinoChill uses a nasal cannula like an intranasal cooling catheter to cool post-cardiac arrest victims rapidly. An inert coolant is delivered through the catheter while flowing oxygen or compressed air to facilitate evaporative cooling of the brain, effectively lowering core body temperature. BeneChill International currently markets RhinoChill in Europe and expects approval in the U.S. in the future.

The Corpuls CPR, a new automated CPR device, was introduced by Corpuls, Inc. of Kaufering, Germany. Expected to be released in Germany and the rest of Europe in 2013, the battery-operated device includes an integral long backboard and features adjustable depth and rate parameters. The manufacturer has no current plans to bring the device to the U.S. market.

Physio-Control based out of Redmond, Wash., unveiled its newest product, TrueCPR, a standalone CPR feedback device designed to provide rescuers with real-time feedback on chest compression depth, rate and quality. TrueCPR utilizes Triaxial Field Induction (TFI), a magnetic technology that overcomes erroneous overreporting of compression depth from devices currently on the market when used on a mattress or stretcher. Physio-Control expects to launch TrueCPR in Europe shortly and in the U.S. in 2013.

RhinoChill, a unique therapeutic hypothermia induction device, was on display by Benechill International, from Wallisellen, Switzerland. Designed for initial induction of therapeutic hypothermia in the pre-hospital environment, RhinoChill uses a nasal cannula like an intranasal cooling catheter to cool post-cardiac arrest victims rapidly. An inert coolant is delivered through the catheter while flowing oxygen or compressed air to facilitate evaporative cooling of the brain, effectively lowering core body temperature. BeneChill International currently markets RhinoChill in Europe and expects approval in the U.S. in the future.

The Corpuls CPR, a new automated CPR device, was introduced by Corpuls, Inc. of Kaufering, Germany. Expected to be released in Germany and the rest of Europe in 2013, the battery-operated device includes an integral long backboard and features adjustable depth and rate parameters. The manufacturer has no current plans to bring the device to the U.S. market.

]]>3 legal lessons to learn from 2011Edward RobsonTue, 20 Dec 2011 16:26:29 UTCAs the year draws to a close, it is worth reviewing some of the legal issues to hit the fire and emergency medical services in 2011.

Social media is a big deal for emergency service organizationsEmergency service organizations, states, dispatch centers and non-profits are implementing social media in ways that have positively impacted public safety. At the same time, social media channels present a variety of liability risks that must be managed.

Organizations that use social media to engage in two-way conversations with the public are particularly at risk. For example, emergency service organizations that allow members of the public to post in their social media channels may face First Amendment liability when they attempt to remove or edit offensive posts.

These organizations may also face liability if members of the public place calls for help using social media channels and receive no response.

When using social media to communicate with the public, emergency service organizations should use social media like a news feed, not a telephone, providing information but not receiving it.

Organizations must also have published attorney-reviewed social media policies that use disclaimers to discourage citizens from using social media as an alternative to the 911 system.

Restricting social media use among paid employees also has risks. Disciplining employees for comments or other postings they make in social media channels outside of work may create First Amendment liability.

Recent actions from the National Labor Relations Board ("NLRB"), the federal agency responsible for employee-labor relations, suggest that a social media policy that is overly restrictive of employee speech violates the National Labor Relations Act even if the offensive policy is never enforced.

Organizations with paid employees should review internal social media policies to determine whether a particular restriction is necessary to preserve the core operations of the organization.

Provisions that punish employees for making offensive or annoying comments in social media channels during non-working hours will generally not pass muster.

It is extremely important to consult with an attorney licensed to practice in your state prior to terminating any employee for their use of social media.

And the labor laws, they are a changing... The laws governing the relationship between employers and unions are being revisited in a dramatic fashion after years of stagnation. At the national level, Obama administration policies are shifting the employer-labor balance in favor of the unions. Recent NLRB complaints, NLRB appointments and executive orders have signaled a sharp union-friendly departure from the Bush administration.

Although most emergency service workers' unions fall under the purview of the state labor laws, many states model their labor laws after the federal law and NLRB interpretations are influential.

At the same time, some Republican-controlled states are attempting to sharply curtail the collective bargaining rights of public sector unions.

Wisconsin, Ohio, Tennessee and Indiana have considered restricting or already restricted collective bargaining rights. Even in those states that have not modified the laws, government officials are becoming increasingly resistant to any pay increases for both union and non-union paid responders.

In many cases, officials have relied on volunteers to minimize the impact of funding and personnel cuts. As states continue to experience budget shortfalls, there will likely be continued shifts in this area which organizations must monitor.

Mutual aid agreements The continued trend of waning volunteerism and cuts to paid departments have emphasized the need to revisit or readjust mutual aid agreements. Although some states have adopted statewide mutual aid systems by statute, many communities rely on agreements with surrounding departments not only to manage large incident but for day to day coverage.

Although the components of mutual aid agreements will be addressed in a future article, effective agreements must clearly define the relationship between responders from different organizations, allocate risks and create functional mechanisms for reimbursements.

Specifically, mutual aid agreements should deal with the chain of command, workers' compensation coverage, reimbursement for expenses and equipment damage, EMS and hazmat billing rights and payment of overtime.

This article is not intended as legal advice and there is no substitute for competent legal counsel licensed to practice in your state.

]]>As the year draws to a close, it is worth reviewing some of the legal issues to hit the fire and emergency medical services in 2011.

Social media is a big deal for emergency service organizationsEmergency service organizations, states, dispatch centers and non-profits are implementing social media in ways that have positively impacted public safety. At the same time, social media channels present a variety of liability risks that must be managed.

Organizations that use social media to engage in two-way conversations with the public are particularly at risk. For example, emergency service organizations that allow members of the public to post in their social media channels may face First Amendment liability when they attempt to remove or edit offensive posts.

These organizations may also face liability if members of the public place calls for help using social media channels and receive no response.

When using social media to communicate with the public, emergency service organizations should use social media like a news feed, not a telephone, providing information but not receiving it.

Organizations must also have published attorney-reviewed social media policies that use disclaimers to discourage citizens from using social media as an alternative to the 911 system.

Restricting social media use among paid employees also has risks. Disciplining employees for comments or other postings they make in social media channels outside of work may create First Amendment liability.

Recent actions from the National Labor Relations Board ("NLRB"), the federal agency responsible for employee-labor relations, suggest that a social media policy that is overly restrictive of employee speech violates the National Labor Relations Act even if the offensive policy is never enforced.

Organizations with paid employees should review internal social media policies to determine whether a particular restriction is necessary to preserve the core operations of the organization.

Provisions that punish employees for making offensive or annoying comments in social media channels during non-working hours will generally not pass muster.

It is extremely important to consult with an attorney licensed to practice in your state prior to terminating any employee for their use of social media.

And the labor laws, they are a changing... The laws governing the relationship between employers and unions are being revisited in a dramatic fashion after years of stagnation. At the national level, Obama administration policies are shifting the employer-labor balance in favor of the unions. Recent NLRB complaints, NLRB appointments and executive orders have signaled a sharp union-friendly departure from the Bush administration.

Although most emergency service workers' unions fall under the purview of the state labor laws, many states model their labor laws after the federal law and NLRB interpretations are influential.

At the same time, some Republican-controlled states are attempting to sharply curtail the collective bargaining rights of public sector unions.

Wisconsin, Ohio, Tennessee and Indiana have considered restricting or already restricted collective bargaining rights. Even in those states that have not modified the laws, government officials are becoming increasingly resistant to any pay increases for both union and non-union paid responders.

In many cases, officials have relied on volunteers to minimize the impact of funding and personnel cuts. As states continue to experience budget shortfalls, there will likely be continued shifts in this area which organizations must monitor.

Mutual aid agreements The continued trend of waning volunteerism and cuts to paid departments have emphasized the need to revisit or readjust mutual aid agreements. Although some states have adopted statewide mutual aid systems by statute, many communities rely on agreements with surrounding departments not only to manage large incident but for day to day coverage.

Although the components of mutual aid agreements will be addressed in a future article, effective agreements must clearly define the relationship between responders from different organizations, allocate risks and create functional mechanisms for reimbursements.

Specifically, mutual aid agreements should deal with the chain of command, workers' compensation coverage, reimbursement for expenses and equipment damage, EMS and hazmat billing rights and payment of overtime.

This article is not intended as legal advice and there is no substitute for competent legal counsel licensed to practice in your state.

]]>Lessons from a line-of-duty deathRick Markley, editor-in-chiefWed, 25 Feb 2015 17:28:11 UTCYou can probably count on one hand the worst things that can happen to you as a firefighter. My list would include my own death, responding to the fatality of a family member or close friend, and a line-of-duty death within the department.

Worst of all, would be causing the death of another firefighter.

That's where now-former firefighter Patrick Cullum finds himself. He was the engineer for a rural Illinois volunteer department who was backing a rig when it struck and killed Medora Fire Chief Kenneth Lehr.

Some preliminary details about the incident have come out, such as the chief may have been riding on the back of the rig and Cullum did not use a spotter.

As is always the case with a line-of-duty death, professional investigators are examining what happened that February afternoon. There will certainly be plenty of fault found in both procedures and policy. What those faults are will come further down the road when the reports are issued.

Though a professional investigation is underway, this has not stopped Cullum or others near the situation from assigning blame — Cullum blames himself, as do others.

The blame was such that he was asked to resign from the department and not attend the chief's funeral. He complied with both requests.

Cullum and his story came to us in a somewhat unlikely way. FireRescue1's sister publication EMS1 ran an editorial questioning the tactics at that fatal incident. It drew sharp and critical reactions from readers — Cullum was one of those readers.

Cullum's social media post led to an exchange of emails, which led to phone calls, which led to the story on his coping with the tragedy.

When we first came across Cullum and learned of his being ostracized from the fire department, my initial fears were that he was a candidate for suicide. I was fearful that level of isolation would push him over the edge.

Another firefighter death is not what this situation needs.

I've thought a lot about what Patrick Cullum must be going through. We can never fully imagine our reactions to a tragedy we've not experienced. Yet, I can see myself in his situation curled up in a corner with only a bottle for company.

Thankfully, he did not follow that route. I was relieved to hear that he has a support network of family, friends and other firefighters. I admire that he's telling his story with the hopes of teaching others — that takes guts.

I'm thankful, too, that he's older and has life experiences that can help him keep this in perspective.

As prudent as it is to reserve judgment on Cullum's actions, I also refuse to rush to judge those within the community who turned against Cullum. I can appreciate how raw the emotions were following the chief's death.

I also can appreciate how this tragedy may prevent others. Certainly, we can learn from these events and take steps in our own department to safeguard against repeating them.

Just as importantly, we can glimpse inside his head and feel his suffering. That too may one day save a firefighter's life.

]]>You can probably count on one hand the worst things that can happen to you as a firefighter. My list would include my own death, responding to the fatality of a family member or close friend, and a line-of-duty death within the department.

Worst of all, would be causing the death of another firefighter.

That's where now-former firefighter Patrick Cullum finds himself. He was the engineer for a rural Illinois volunteer department who was backing a rig when it struck and killed Medora Fire Chief Kenneth Lehr.

Some preliminary details about the incident have come out, such as the chief may have been riding on the back of the rig and Cullum did not use a spotter.

As is always the case with a line-of-duty death, professional investigators are examining what happened that February afternoon. There will certainly be plenty of fault found in both procedures and policy. What those faults are will come further down the road when the reports are issued.

Though a professional investigation is underway, this has not stopped Cullum or others near the situation from assigning blame — Cullum blames himself, as do others.

The blame was such that he was asked to resign from the department and not attend the chief's funeral. He complied with both requests.

Cullum and his story came to us in a somewhat unlikely way. FireRescue1's sister publication EMS1 ran an editorial questioning the tactics at that fatal incident. It drew sharp and critical reactions from readers — Cullum was one of those readers.

Cullum's social media post led to an exchange of emails, which led to phone calls, which led to the story on his coping with the tragedy.

When we first came across Cullum and learned of his being ostracized from the fire department, my initial fears were that he was a candidate for suicide. I was fearful that level of isolation would push him over the edge.

Another firefighter death is not what this situation needs.

I've thought a lot about what Patrick Cullum must be going through. We can never fully imagine our reactions to a tragedy we've not experienced. Yet, I can see myself in his situation curled up in a corner with only a bottle for company.

Thankfully, he did not follow that route. I was relieved to hear that he has a support network of family, friends and other firefighters. I admire that he's telling his story with the hopes of teaching others — that takes guts.

I'm thankful, too, that he's older and has life experiences that can help him keep this in perspective.

As prudent as it is to reserve judgment on Cullum's actions, I also refuse to rush to judge those within the community who turned against Cullum. I can appreciate how raw the emotions were following the chief's death.

I also can appreciate how this tragedy may prevent others. Certainly, we can learn from these events and take steps in our own department to safeguard against repeating them.

Just as importantly, we can glimpse inside his head and feel his suffering. That too may one day save a firefighter's life.

]]>Why firefighters die in the fog of battleBruce HenslerTue, 13 Jan 2015 17:29:21 UTC"No, nobody ever fights wars as well as they should have, especially in hindsight." — Shelby Foote, Civil War historian

The same must be said of fighting fires.

In the frigid early-morning hours of Dec. 20, 1991, four Pennsylvania volunteer firefighters died when they were trapped by a partial floor collapse during a structure fire in the community of Brackenridge, north of Pittsburgh.

The four were members of a mutual aid truck company that were assigned to prevent fire extension from the basement to the ground floor of a two-story commercial building. It was a building that the local firefighters thought they knew.

Unfortunately they knew very little about the building.

Although the four wore full protective clothing and self-contained breathing apparatus, they were overwhelmed by severe fire conditions erupting as a section of the ground floor collapsed into the basement. The resulting collapse cut off their primary escape path, as the fire burned through their hose-line leaving them without protection.

The volunteers who died were all members of the Hilltop Hose Company. They were: Michael Cielicki Burns, 27; David Emmanuelson, 29; Rick Frantz, 23; and Frank Veri, Jr., 31.

What went wrong The four men died in the line-of-duty executing a routine tactic while (apparently) totally unaware of the situation that was developing in the basement fire room below them. Not only were they unaware, but we have to presume that the command officers also lacked full situational awareness.

The four men died in spite of the fact that they were experienced firefighters operating within the standard tactical framework of the era and with adherence to known safety factors of the time.

There was no pre-fire plan that might have helped them understand the risk. The warning signs were not heeded and, as in so many cases of firefighter fatality, the triggering circumstances flowed from the result of multiple failure points conspiring to create the worst possible outcome.

Almost always without too much deep thinking we chalk these firefighting nightmares up as inevitable given the fact that we mostly operate within the fog of battle. As pragmatic practitioners of the craft of firefighting, we willingly accept the inherent dangers and that is how it always has been and always will be.

An honest reading We shy away from and fiercely resist any accusation or condemnation of the actions or judgment of those directly involved. We analyze the event, but only up to a point seeking not to point a finger, but to discover "lessons learned" with the hopeful intention to not repeat the mistakes.

If that is case, are we then fooling ourselves?

A report issued after the fire cited valuable lessons for the fire service and pointed out that the lessons were not new discoveries in 1991. Unfortunately, 23 years later, today's fire service still fails to absorb those lessons. An honest reading of the 1991 report leads one to ask questions, questions that flow naturally from the facts as presented.

Given the inadequate water supply, were there too many small lines in operation? Until an adequate water supply was set up, should the attack have been limited to one or two lines?

Given the faulty assumptions about the building's construction, how aware was the incident commander of the real situation inside the building? Did the commander sufficiently confer with the sector officers? Was the commander overwhelmed with problems that might have been dealt with by delegation or a chief's aide?

Were the problems with communications such that instead of just acknowledging them something else could have been done such as using face-to-face communication? Could freelancing have been contributing to the confusion affecting communications and preventing personnel accountability?

Lessons from 1991 There will always be lessons learned and until something changes those lessons will be repeated time and again. We know well the lessons from the Brackenridge fire.

An effective pre-fire planning program should cover all major structures in the community.

The need for standard operating procedures for incident management is particularly great in areas where there are numerous autonomous fire companies.

Fireground information must be effectively communicated and processed to formulate a risk assessment and incident attack plan.

Over two decades later it is easy in hindsight to critique the people involved and what they did that December morning. We ignore the facts, not because it is the truth pure and simple, but because the facts get in the way of what we want to believe.

The sadness from a tragic and sudden loss leaves us uncomfortable with the reality that this was not a case of inevitable fate. We have to memorialize the loss of the brave firefighters because our failure to fully know the enemy in the fog of battle and to willingly accept the risk demands tribute.

]]>"No, nobody ever fights wars as well as they should have, especially in hindsight." — Shelby Foote, Civil War historian

The same must be said of fighting fires.

In the frigid early-morning hours of Dec. 20, 1991, four Pennsylvania volunteer firefighters died when they were trapped by a partial floor collapse during a structure fire in the community of Brackenridge, north of Pittsburgh.

The four were members of a mutual aid truck company that were assigned to prevent fire extension from the basement to the ground floor of a two-story commercial building. It was a building that the local firefighters thought they knew.

Unfortunately they knew very little about the building.

Although the four wore full protective clothing and self-contained breathing apparatus, they were overwhelmed by severe fire conditions erupting as a section of the ground floor collapsed into the basement. The resulting collapse cut off their primary escape path, as the fire burned through their hose-line leaving them without protection.

The volunteers who died were all members of the Hilltop Hose Company. They were: Michael Cielicki Burns, 27; David Emmanuelson, 29; Rick Frantz, 23; and Frank Veri, Jr., 31.

What went wrong The four men died in the line-of-duty executing a routine tactic while (apparently) totally unaware of the situation that was developing in the basement fire room below them. Not only were they unaware, but we have to presume that the command officers also lacked full situational awareness.

The four men died in spite of the fact that they were experienced firefighters operating within the standard tactical framework of the era and with adherence to known safety factors of the time.

There was no pre-fire plan that might have helped them understand the risk. The warning signs were not heeded and, as in so many cases of firefighter fatality, the triggering circumstances flowed from the result of multiple failure points conspiring to create the worst possible outcome.

Almost always without too much deep thinking we chalk these firefighting nightmares up as inevitable given the fact that we mostly operate within the fog of battle. As pragmatic practitioners of the craft of firefighting, we willingly accept the inherent dangers and that is how it always has been and always will be.

An honest reading We shy away from and fiercely resist any accusation or condemnation of the actions or judgment of those directly involved. We analyze the event, but only up to a point seeking not to point a finger, but to discover "lessons learned" with the hopeful intention to not repeat the mistakes.

If that is case, are we then fooling ourselves?

A report issued after the fire cited valuable lessons for the fire service and pointed out that the lessons were not new discoveries in 1991. Unfortunately, 23 years later, today's fire service still fails to absorb those lessons. An honest reading of the 1991 report leads one to ask questions, questions that flow naturally from the facts as presented.

Given the inadequate water supply, were there too many small lines in operation? Until an adequate water supply was set up, should the attack have been limited to one or two lines?

Given the faulty assumptions about the building's construction, how aware was the incident commander of the real situation inside the building? Did the commander sufficiently confer with the sector officers? Was the commander overwhelmed with problems that might have been dealt with by delegation or a chief's aide?

Were the problems with communications such that instead of just acknowledging them something else could have been done such as using face-to-face communication? Could freelancing have been contributing to the confusion affecting communications and preventing personnel accountability?

Lessons from 1991 There will always be lessons learned and until something changes those lessons will be repeated time and again. We know well the lessons from the Brackenridge fire.

An effective pre-fire planning program should cover all major structures in the community.

The need for standard operating procedures for incident management is particularly great in areas where there are numerous autonomous fire companies.

Fireground information must be effectively communicated and processed to formulate a risk assessment and incident attack plan.

Over two decades later it is easy in hindsight to critique the people involved and what they did that December morning. We ignore the facts, not because it is the truth pure and simple, but because the facts get in the way of what we want to believe.

The sadness from a tragic and sudden loss leaves us uncomfortable with the reality that this was not a case of inevitable fate. We have to memorialize the loss of the brave firefighters because our failure to fully know the enemy in the fog of battle and to willingly accept the risk demands tribute.

]]>What a changing 911 means to fire departmentsRobert AvsecWed, 25 Feb 2015 14:31:46 UTCThe first 911 call in the United States was placed in Haleyville, Ala., on Feb. 16, 1968. And for nearly 50 years the 911 system had done a good job of meeting its intended purpose.

But there is a new generation of technologies coming that will make the current 911 system seem like a Ford Model T. Next Generation 911 (NG-911) will create a faster and more flexible, resilient and scalable system that allows 911 to keep up with communication technology used by the public.

NG-911 will give better tools to Public Safety Answering Points and local 911 authorities, tools such as the ability to transfer calls, messages, and data between any PSAP on any interconnected NG-911 system anywhere in the country.

These tools also will include support for disaster-related 911 call control — those periods when the number of calls for service coming in quickly outpace the available PSAP staff's ability to answer and process all the calls.

Put simply, NG-911 is an Internet Protocol-based system that will allow information in digital formats — voice, photos, videos, text messages, etc. — to flow seamlessly from the public, through the 911 network, and on to the appropriate emergency responders.

Imagine you and your crew are responding to a reported structure fire. While responding, you receive video images of the building that's on fire on your tablet from the dispatch center that has received them from a civilian using smartphone.

It's here The technology to implement NG-911 systems is available now. Yet, implementing NG-911 will require the efforts of many people to plan and deploy a continually evolving system of hardware, software, standards, policies, protocols and training.

We communicate much differently than we did in 1968. In just the past two years, the number of new wireless phone numbers activated has outpaced that for landlines for the first time in history.

What does all this mean for public safety agencies and the public serve? NG-911, particularly the text-messaging component, will greatly improve the ability for millions of people to gain access to the emergency services they need.

The hearing-impaired will be able to communicate with a 911 telecommunicator without special equipment. The same is true for those who don't speak easily understood English. Hostages can text their emergency to 911 — and 911 can text them back — without alerting the perpetrator.

Dispatch centers will be able to transmit BOLO (be on the lookout) information that includes photos, security camera video and text, regarding a bank robbery to all public safety units, surrounding jurisdictions, media outlets or the public within minutes of law enforcement officers obtaining that information.

Ongoing case study Metro 911 of Kanawha County, W.V., Metro 911 for short, was established in 1987 by the City of Charleston and Kanawha County that created one PSAP for Kanawha County and Charleston. Metro 911 is also the dispatching and communications center for 47 police, fire and EMS agencies in the 911 square mile Kanawha River Valley.

"Thus far, we've implemented the text-to-911 technology in our center," said Brooke Hylbert, executive assistant in charge of internal and external communications at Metro 911. "Text-to-911 was launched to the public on July 22, 2014 with Sprint and Verizon mobile service providers on board. In September 2014, we went live with AT&T."

To prepare for launch, Hylbert said, they started small and grew. They wrote policies, created a public-education plan, updated equipment and trained staff.

"In order to avoid overwhelming our telecommunicators, we launched text-from-911 outbound service only in June 2014," she said. The telecommunicators would initiate a text from 911 when we received a 911 hang-up call from a cell phone."

'Call if you can' Previously, the center called back all 911 hang-up calls from cell phones. Now, they still make the call, but if they do not receive an answer they send this text message: "911. We received a hang-up call from your cell phone. Do you have an emergency?"

"We did not tell the public about this service, because we did not want them to get confused and think they could initiate a text to us," she said. "This service only worked when Metro 911 initiated a text to a citizen."

Text-to-911 inbound launched a month later. Initially, telecommunicators were concerned about an influx of calls, she said. But, they were trained and the system proved very user friendly.

The public education component included a text information hotline, media outreach, flyers mailed with tax bills and Metro911's website, she said.

"The main point that we wanted the public to know was 'Call if you can; text when you can't,'" she said. "The public has really listened to our message and are continuing to call 911 when it is possible and/or safe for them to do so."

]]>The first 911 call in the United States was placed in Haleyville, Ala., on Feb. 16, 1968. And for nearly 50 years the 911 system had done a good job of meeting its intended purpose.

But there is a new generation of technologies coming that will make the current 911 system seem like a Ford Model T. Next Generation 911 (NG-911) will create a faster and more flexible, resilient and scalable system that allows 911 to keep up with communication technology used by the public.

NG-911 will give better tools to Public Safety Answering Points and local 911 authorities, tools such as the ability to transfer calls, messages, and data between any PSAP on any interconnected NG-911 system anywhere in the country.

These tools also will include support for disaster-related 911 call control — those periods when the number of calls for service coming in quickly outpace the available PSAP staff's ability to answer and process all the calls.

Put simply, NG-911 is an Internet Protocol-based system that will allow information in digital formats — voice, photos, videos, text messages, etc. — to flow seamlessly from the public, through the 911 network, and on to the appropriate emergency responders.

Imagine you and your crew are responding to a reported structure fire. While responding, you receive video images of the building that's on fire on your tablet from the dispatch center that has received them from a civilian using smartphone.

It's here The technology to implement NG-911 systems is available now. Yet, implementing NG-911 will require the efforts of many people to plan and deploy a continually evolving system of hardware, software, standards, policies, protocols and training.

We communicate much differently than we did in 1968. In just the past two years, the number of new wireless phone numbers activated has outpaced that for landlines for the first time in history.

What does all this mean for public safety agencies and the public serve? NG-911, particularly the text-messaging component, will greatly improve the ability for millions of people to gain access to the emergency services they need.

The hearing-impaired will be able to communicate with a 911 telecommunicator without special equipment. The same is true for those who don't speak easily understood English. Hostages can text their emergency to 911 — and 911 can text them back — without alerting the perpetrator.

Dispatch centers will be able to transmit BOLO (be on the lookout) information that includes photos, security camera video and text, regarding a bank robbery to all public safety units, surrounding jurisdictions, media outlets or the public within minutes of law enforcement officers obtaining that information.

Ongoing case study Metro 911 of Kanawha County, W.V., Metro 911 for short, was established in 1987 by the City of Charleston and Kanawha County that created one PSAP for Kanawha County and Charleston. Metro 911 is also the dispatching and communications center for 47 police, fire and EMS agencies in the 911 square mile Kanawha River Valley.

"Thus far, we've implemented the text-to-911 technology in our center," said Brooke Hylbert, executive assistant in charge of internal and external communications at Metro 911. "Text-to-911 was launched to the public on July 22, 2014 with Sprint and Verizon mobile service providers on board. In September 2014, we went live with AT&T."

To prepare for launch, Hylbert said, they started small and grew. They wrote policies, created a public-education plan, updated equipment and trained staff.

"In order to avoid overwhelming our telecommunicators, we launched text-from-911 outbound service only in June 2014," she said. The telecommunicators would initiate a text from 911 when we received a 911 hang-up call from a cell phone."

'Call if you can' Previously, the center called back all 911 hang-up calls from cell phones. Now, they still make the call, but if they do not receive an answer they send this text message: "911. We received a hang-up call from your cell phone. Do you have an emergency?"

"We did not tell the public about this service, because we did not want them to get confused and think they could initiate a text to us," she said. "This service only worked when Metro 911 initiated a text to a citizen."

Text-to-911 inbound launched a month later. Initially, telecommunicators were concerned about an influx of calls, she said. But, they were trained and the system proved very user friendly.

The public education component included a text information hotline, media outreach, flyers mailed with tax bills and Metro911's website, she said.

"The main point that we wanted the public to know was 'Call if you can; text when you can't,'" she said. "The public has really listened to our message and are continuing to call 911 when it is possible and/or safe for them to do so."

My own take on the speech was somewhere in the middle. He never said do not be safe. I think he was really trying to say he fears we are taking the "be safe" component to an extreme. He has stirred a good debate and I applaud him for having the conviction to stand up for his beliefs.

But the one big thing that was missing from all of the discussion that followed the speech, and seemingly absent from all fire service debates/discussions, is the bastard child of the fire service: the culture of prevention.

You know, that annoying little member of our family who we always try to make sure is relatively unseen and certainly never heard from? After all, most of the debate related to "The Speech" does not happen if the fire, gasp, is prevented and never happens in the first place!

There is much national gnawing and gnashing of the teeth as staffing on trucks are being reduced, stations closed, revolving station closures, etc. amidst the current economic climate.

No doubt we should be screaming from the highest mountain tops about all of that as it does involve the wellbeing of our people and those we serve. We are, however, eerily quiet when it comes to public educators and other "prevention" components of our service when they get cut.

Why is this? Well, for me, it is because we DO have a culture of extinguishment! That is where Lt. McCormack was all wrong in his speech. The culture of extinguishment is more than alive and well and probably always will be in a vast majority of departments in the United States.

Don't believe me? Take a look at your own department's budget priorities. Next, look at the departments around you. In the Washington, D.C.–Metro area, we have two departments that now have no public educators and three that cut staffing by more than 50 percent.

Meanwhile, one that has taken its few remaining educators and trained them as inspectors and let them know that most of their duties will fall under revenue generating inspections. I will admit that the last one at least has a prevention component to it so not all is lost.

The old adage is that you cut what you do not perceive to be the greatest value. Fortunately my chief values our risk reduction efforts (as well as firefighter safety) and let it be known that cutting our public education staff is not even an option for discussion.

But actions speak louder than words and the vast majority of departments across our great land have spoken. The proponents of the speech can rest easy — I firmly believe that the culture of extinguishment is alive and well in our great country!

My own take on the speech was somewhere in the middle. He never said do not be safe. I think he was really trying to say he fears we are taking the "be safe" component to an extreme. He has stirred a good debate and I applaud him for having the conviction to stand up for his beliefs.

But the one big thing that was missing from all of the discussion that followed the speech, and seemingly absent from all fire service debates/discussions, is the bastard child of the fire service: the culture of prevention.

You know, that annoying little member of our family who we always try to make sure is relatively unseen and certainly never heard from? After all, most of the debate related to "The Speech" does not happen if the fire, gasp, is prevented and never happens in the first place!

There is much national gnawing and gnashing of the teeth as staffing on trucks are being reduced, stations closed, revolving station closures, etc. amidst the current economic climate.

No doubt we should be screaming from the highest mountain tops about all of that as it does involve the wellbeing of our people and those we serve. We are, however, eerily quiet when it comes to public educators and other "prevention" components of our service when they get cut.

Why is this? Well, for me, it is because we DO have a culture of extinguishment! That is where Lt. McCormack was all wrong in his speech. The culture of extinguishment is more than alive and well and probably always will be in a vast majority of departments in the United States.

Don't believe me? Take a look at your own department's budget priorities. Next, look at the departments around you. In the Washington, D.C.–Metro area, we have two departments that now have no public educators and three that cut staffing by more than 50 percent.

Meanwhile, one that has taken its few remaining educators and trained them as inspectors and let them know that most of their duties will fall under revenue generating inspections. I will admit that the last one at least has a prevention component to it so not all is lost.

The old adage is that you cut what you do not perceive to be the greatest value. Fortunately my chief values our risk reduction efforts (as well as firefighter safety) and let it be known that cutting our public education staff is not even an option for discussion.

But actions speak louder than words and the vast majority of departments across our great land have spoken. The proponents of the speech can rest easy — I firmly believe that the culture of extinguishment is alive and well in our great country!

When I was asked to write an article that would address this year's Safety, Health and Survival Week, I was initially struck with writer's block. Unfortunately within a few short days I found myself facing a situation that provided me with ample material to write about.

Last week my fire department was dispatched to assist to a neighboring department with a house fire. I happened to be at the firehouse so I quickly proceeded to don my gear and grab a jump seat — for once I didn't have to drive! The rear of the ladder truck soon filled with four other members and we turned out down the street.

One of the members sitting across from me was a newly promoted lieutenant. As with many volunteer departments, a line officer is often found riding in the back seat when another line officer has already grabbed the front — we can argue that practice at a later time. I noticed that this new lieutenant was not wearing his seat belt. I immediately said "Dude, where's your seat belt?" Motioning at the retracted seat belt as he glared at me, he replied, "Right here."

My response? "How 'bout you put your seat belt on so that if we crash this thing you don't come across the seat and kill me?" Somehow I went from scoring a coveted jump seat en route to a working fire to the middle of a stand-off. Grudgingly, he put his seat belt on and we continued on our way.

As we pulled up to the scene, this newly minted lieutenant snidely plucked at his seat belt strap and said, "Is it all right to take this off now?" At that point, I felt I'd had enough. Having spent several years as a line and chief officer, this lieutenant for me was setting an extremely poor example for the younger and more impressionable members riding in the rig. I then proceeded to explain my feelings to this lieutenant — perhaps a bit harshly — until another senior member put the discussion to rest by simply stating, "At this station, we wear our seat belts." End of story.

Epitomizes problemsSo why do I share this story? I do so because this 3-minute episode epitomizes the problems that we face in today’s fire service on many different levels. The title of this year's Safety, Health and Survival Week is "Committed to Long-Term Results." But how can we commit to long-term results if those in positions of leadership and power won't follow the rules themselves? How is it possible that a line officer can not only get away with not wearing a seat belt, but can then argue the issue with someone who tells him to put it on? Have we learned nothing from those who have given their lives before us?

Imagine this scenario: A fire apparatus rolls out the door with two young firefighters and a line officer. One of the young firefighters sees that his officer isn't wearing his seat belt and figures he doesn't need to wear it either. The truck crashes and the young firefighter is ejected and killed. Who is at fault? The reports and the scuttlebutt will all say that if this young firefighter had just put his seat belt on, he would still be here today. People will question his poor judgment and shake their heads at what they believe was a rookie mistake. But was it?

In reality, that same line officer who set a silent example by not wearing his seat belt is largely responsible for this hypothetical fatality. Like it or not, when you pin a fancy gold horn on your collar or put that shiny white front piece on your helmet, you’ve become someone that younger members look up to and follow. Even when you don’t realize it, these members are emulating you and following your example. Senior firefighters, line officers and chiefs all create a culture that younger and more junior firefighters will learn to live by. It is this culture that can save or cost a life.

If the fire service truly wishes to bring about long-term results, it's time to start holding people responsible for their actions. It seems that every time one of us is injured or killed, the rest of us are hesitant to ask questions or pass judgment. As a result, this culture never changes. How do I know? Look at the number of firefighter fatalities over the past 20 years. Does anyone really see a difference?

So how should we hold people accountable? It's time to start wielding a big stick. Fancy posters and cute little stickers telling you to wear your seat belt haven’t worked. Every year there are still numerous line-of-duty deaths that are a direct result of someone not wearing their seat belt. Want to make a difference? Start randomly stopping your rigs and checking to see that everyone has their seat belt on. If someone doesn't, suspend them. More than three infractions, show them the door. Maybe it's time to have the cops start citing people who can't get the message through their heads. After all, not wearing your seat belt is against the law!

Until these types of attitudes change or people are held responsible for their actions, I don’t believe we will ever reduce the number of line–of-duty deaths, especially those that are a direct result of vehicle crashes. Unless those in charge begin to lead by example and create a culture in which reckless driving, poor attitudes and lack of seat belt use are no longer tolerated, the culture will never change and we will be doomed to repeat our mistakes over and over again.

To those who have already begun to move this ship in a positive direction, my hat is off to you. And to those that refuse to help the rest of us reduce the number of firefighter fatalities by continuing this reckless culture ... I say maybe it's time to go.

When I was asked to write an article that would address this year's Safety, Health and Survival Week, I was initially struck with writer's block. Unfortunately within a few short days I found myself facing a situation that provided me with ample material to write about.

Last week my fire department was dispatched to assist to a neighboring department with a house fire. I happened to be at the firehouse so I quickly proceeded to don my gear and grab a jump seat — for once I didn't have to drive! The rear of the ladder truck soon filled with four other members and we turned out down the street.

One of the members sitting across from me was a newly promoted lieutenant. As with many volunteer departments, a line officer is often found riding in the back seat when another line officer has already grabbed the front — we can argue that practice at a later time. I noticed that this new lieutenant was not wearing his seat belt. I immediately said "Dude, where's your seat belt?" Motioning at the retracted seat belt as he glared at me, he replied, "Right here."

My response? "How 'bout you put your seat belt on so that if we crash this thing you don't come across the seat and kill me?" Somehow I went from scoring a coveted jump seat en route to a working fire to the middle of a stand-off. Grudgingly, he put his seat belt on and we continued on our way.

As we pulled up to the scene, this newly minted lieutenant snidely plucked at his seat belt strap and said, "Is it all right to take this off now?" At that point, I felt I'd had enough. Having spent several years as a line and chief officer, this lieutenant for me was setting an extremely poor example for the younger and more impressionable members riding in the rig. I then proceeded to explain my feelings to this lieutenant — perhaps a bit harshly — until another senior member put the discussion to rest by simply stating, "At this station, we wear our seat belts." End of story.

Epitomizes problemsSo why do I share this story? I do so because this 3-minute episode epitomizes the problems that we face in today’s fire service on many different levels. The title of this year's Safety, Health and Survival Week is "Committed to Long-Term Results." But how can we commit to long-term results if those in positions of leadership and power won't follow the rules themselves? How is it possible that a line officer can not only get away with not wearing a seat belt, but can then argue the issue with someone who tells him to put it on? Have we learned nothing from those who have given their lives before us?

Imagine this scenario: A fire apparatus rolls out the door with two young firefighters and a line officer. One of the young firefighters sees that his officer isn't wearing his seat belt and figures he doesn't need to wear it either. The truck crashes and the young firefighter is ejected and killed. Who is at fault? The reports and the scuttlebutt will all say that if this young firefighter had just put his seat belt on, he would still be here today. People will question his poor judgment and shake their heads at what they believe was a rookie mistake. But was it?

In reality, that same line officer who set a silent example by not wearing his seat belt is largely responsible for this hypothetical fatality. Like it or not, when you pin a fancy gold horn on your collar or put that shiny white front piece on your helmet, you’ve become someone that younger members look up to and follow. Even when you don’t realize it, these members are emulating you and following your example. Senior firefighters, line officers and chiefs all create a culture that younger and more junior firefighters will learn to live by. It is this culture that can save or cost a life.

If the fire service truly wishes to bring about long-term results, it's time to start holding people responsible for their actions. It seems that every time one of us is injured or killed, the rest of us are hesitant to ask questions or pass judgment. As a result, this culture never changes. How do I know? Look at the number of firefighter fatalities over the past 20 years. Does anyone really see a difference?

So how should we hold people accountable? It's time to start wielding a big stick. Fancy posters and cute little stickers telling you to wear your seat belt haven’t worked. Every year there are still numerous line-of-duty deaths that are a direct result of someone not wearing their seat belt. Want to make a difference? Start randomly stopping your rigs and checking to see that everyone has their seat belt on. If someone doesn't, suspend them. More than three infractions, show them the door. Maybe it's time to have the cops start citing people who can't get the message through their heads. After all, not wearing your seat belt is against the law!

Until these types of attitudes change or people are held responsible for their actions, I don’t believe we will ever reduce the number of line–of-duty deaths, especially those that are a direct result of vehicle crashes. Unless those in charge begin to lead by example and create a culture in which reckless driving, poor attitudes and lack of seat belt use are no longer tolerated, the culture will never change and we will be doomed to repeat our mistakes over and over again.

To those who have already begun to move this ship in a positive direction, my hat is off to you. And to those that refuse to help the rest of us reduce the number of firefighter fatalities by continuing this reckless culture ... I say maybe it's time to go.

]]>Fighting the balloon-frame construction fireChief Gary Bowker (Ret.)Wed, 11 Feb 2015 16:19:50 UTCA successful fireground operation begins with a proper size-up that identifies the type of construction involved. Balloon-frame style construction is one of the two most common styles of traditional wood-frame construction, with platform frame construction being the next most common.

Balloon-frame, which was built from the early 19th century until World War II, poses unique firefighting problems because it lacks horizontal fire stops between the studs inside of the exterior walls.

Most balloon-frame homes are two or three stories tall. This allows for unimpeded fire spread from the basement to the attic in a matter of minutes via the interior stud channels of the exterior walls.

Platform frame became popular after World War II and shortened the exterior walls to 8 or 10 feet and provided fire stopping between floors.

Fire's pathway The lack of fire stopping within the exterior walls can pose a major challenge for firefighters. In addition, the joist channels underneath the floors are interconnected with the exterior wall stud channels. A basement or interior fire that enters this void space can result in vertical and lateral fire spread throughout the structure.

If conditions permit, check the attic void soon after arrival. Once fire gains control of the wall and floor voids, it often dooms the structure. It is common to find a large finished room within the attic of these homes. This further complicates accessing a fire that has extended into the attic void.

I responded to a fire in a balloon-frame residence one evening in which the fire originated in the basement. Several minutes after crews gained entry into the basement, fire began to vent from the attic windows.

We discovered the attic room had a finished hardwood skating rink installed over the floor, covering the entire top floor of the residence.

Another common avenue of fire spread within a balloon-frame structure is the transoms. The transom is an operable window above interior room doors to allow air circulation while the door is closed. Fire can quickly breach the transom and spread unimpeded from the room of origin into hallways and adjoining rooms.

Additionally, balloon-frame homes often have open stairwells that are quickly compromised by the heat, smoke and fire. This may necessitate laddering for the rescue of occupants. They also have large search areas.

Wolf in sheep's clothing Until recently, it was reasonable to assume most two-story or greater wood-frame homes built before World War II were balloon-frame. However, modern lightweight wood-frame construction methods can achieve the look of older Victorian-style construction.

Do not be deceived. Fire spread characteristics and collapse potential are vastly different in lightweight wood frame structures compared to homes of the balloon-frame era.

Often, the true balloon-frame constructed homes will be located in older neighborhoods built in that era, and may exceed 5,000 square feet. Whereas, the new lightweight-constructed homes will likely be in newly developed locations. Their average size is between 2,500 and 3,000 square feet.

A closer look at a newly built home will reveal building materials not available in the early 20th century, such as vinyl siding, vinyl window, synthetic porch decking and decorative trim.

Safety precautions Traditional balloon frame homes were often built and can be identified with native stone or block used in the foundations. Original lot sizes found in many traditional homes tend to be narrow and deep, compared to lots built upon in recent years, which tend to be wider and less deep.

Additionally, these units are also being converted from a single-family dwelling into multiple apartments, frat houses, and bed-and-breakfast type occupancies are common. Multiple occupants should be expected in these conversions often with the only means of egress being a single, narrow interior stairwell.

Fires in balloon-frame homes can rapidly spread throughout the structure in a variety of ways, entrapping unsuspecting occupants. Such was the case of an early morning house fire in Stamford, Conn. on Christmas Day 2011, which claimed the lives of five family members.

Firefighters must be prepared for a variety of challenges, with limited staffing, when arriving on scene of a balloon-frame structure fire. These fires will be labor intensive and will pose a significant challenge for firefighters. Training and pre-incident planning are essential for successful operations.

In addition, public education training is essential for the occupants regarding the importance of smoke alarms and escape planning. The use of residential escape ladders from upper story bedrooms is a good recommendation to discuss with homeowners.

]]>A successful fireground operation begins with a proper size-up that identifies the type of construction involved. Balloon-frame style construction is one of the two most common styles of traditional wood-frame construction, with platform frame construction being the next most common.

Balloon-frame, which was built from the early 19th century until World War II, poses unique firefighting problems because it lacks horizontal fire stops between the studs inside of the exterior walls.

Most balloon-frame homes are two or three stories tall. This allows for unimpeded fire spread from the basement to the attic in a matter of minutes via the interior stud channels of the exterior walls.

Platform frame became popular after World War II and shortened the exterior walls to 8 or 10 feet and provided fire stopping between floors.

Fire's pathway The lack of fire stopping within the exterior walls can pose a major challenge for firefighters. In addition, the joist channels underneath the floors are interconnected with the exterior wall stud channels. A basement or interior fire that enters this void space can result in vertical and lateral fire spread throughout the structure.

If conditions permit, check the attic void soon after arrival. Once fire gains control of the wall and floor voids, it often dooms the structure. It is common to find a large finished room within the attic of these homes. This further complicates accessing a fire that has extended into the attic void.

I responded to a fire in a balloon-frame residence one evening in which the fire originated in the basement. Several minutes after crews gained entry into the basement, fire began to vent from the attic windows.

We discovered the attic room had a finished hardwood skating rink installed over the floor, covering the entire top floor of the residence.

Another common avenue of fire spread within a balloon-frame structure is the transoms. The transom is an operable window above interior room doors to allow air circulation while the door is closed. Fire can quickly breach the transom and spread unimpeded from the room of origin into hallways and adjoining rooms.

Additionally, balloon-frame homes often have open stairwells that are quickly compromised by the heat, smoke and fire. This may necessitate laddering for the rescue of occupants. They also have large search areas.

Wolf in sheep's clothing Until recently, it was reasonable to assume most two-story or greater wood-frame homes built before World War II were balloon-frame. However, modern lightweight wood-frame construction methods can achieve the look of older Victorian-style construction.

Do not be deceived. Fire spread characteristics and collapse potential are vastly different in lightweight wood frame structures compared to homes of the balloon-frame era.

Often, the true balloon-frame constructed homes will be located in older neighborhoods built in that era, and may exceed 5,000 square feet. Whereas, the new lightweight-constructed homes will likely be in newly developed locations. Their average size is between 2,500 and 3,000 square feet.

A closer look at a newly built home will reveal building materials not available in the early 20th century, such as vinyl siding, vinyl window, synthetic porch decking and decorative trim.

Safety precautions Traditional balloon frame homes were often built and can be identified with native stone or block used in the foundations. Original lot sizes found in many traditional homes tend to be narrow and deep, compared to lots built upon in recent years, which tend to be wider and less deep.

Additionally, these units are also being converted from a single-family dwelling into multiple apartments, frat houses, and bed-and-breakfast type occupancies are common. Multiple occupants should be expected in these conversions often with the only means of egress being a single, narrow interior stairwell.

Fires in balloon-frame homes can rapidly spread throughout the structure in a variety of ways, entrapping unsuspecting occupants. Such was the case of an early morning house fire in Stamford, Conn. on Christmas Day 2011, which claimed the lives of five family members.

Firefighters must be prepared for a variety of challenges, with limited staffing, when arriving on scene of a balloon-frame structure fire. These fires will be labor intensive and will pose a significant challenge for firefighters. Training and pre-incident planning are essential for successful operations.

In addition, public education training is essential for the occupants regarding the importance of smoke alarms and escape planning. The use of residential escape ladders from upper story bedrooms is a good recommendation to discuss with homeowners.

]]>9 sources of firefighter stressLinda WillingMon, 9 Feb 2015 23:38:55 UTCWhen I read the recent article that declared firefighting to be the most stressful job in the United States, I remembered a conversation I had long ago with a friend who was a paramedic with the private ambulance service in town.

We were talking about stress, and he said, "I don't know why everyone always talks about going on calls as being stressful. That's the fun part of the job. Dealing with company managers, that's the stressful part of the job."

He was only partly kidding. Of course there are emergency calls that cause stress for first responders. All firefighters have at least one story about a call that really got to them. But firefighters are also often in a better position to deal with that kind of job stress as they have a built-in support group among their crew, where they can talk things out, make rude jokes, and find ways to move on.

This is not to say that firefighters don't suffer from stress. They do, but the sources of stress go far beyond just the occasional disturbing emergency response.

Based on years of working with fire departments across the country and many hours of conversation with firefighters of all ranks, I offer a list of some of the other sources of stress firefighters face.

1. Shift work When I was single, working 24-hour shifts was fantastic. When I had a family, shift work became much more difficult to manage. Partners of firefighters who are not in the emergency services often feel like single parents and may resent being stuck doing all the work at home when the other is on shift.

For firefighters in relationships with other emergency responders, finding reliable childcare for 24- or 48-hour shifts is a real challenge. And working opposite shifts can take its toll on any relationship.

2. Sleep deprivation Studies show that a large percentage of firefighters are chronically sleep deprived. This lack of quality sleep over time can contribute to physical and mental issues including immune system problems, more frequent accidents, changes in mood and temperament, and poor decision making.

3. Inadequate training Well-trained firefighters are confident and tend to make good decisions. They work well in teams. Poorly trained firefighters will either feel fearful or as if they have something to prove.

The result can be either holding back when action is needed or dangerous freelancing. Both outcomes are bad for the organization and dangerous for all involved.

4. Technical problems Gear that doesn't fit. Tools that don't work and are not replaced. Apparatus that is always breaking down when you need it most.

Firefighters are resourceful by nature and the occasional breakdown will be seen as a challenge. But chronic problems in this area will lead to the feeling that department leaders don't care about those who are doing the work in the field.

5. Bad crews You're stuck with these people for 12, 24, or 48 hours. So having coworkers who get on your nerves can become a source of real stress over time. These behaviors may not be deliberate — the dorm snorer, the talkative political extremist, the close talker with bad breath.

But if a crew cannot work through its differences, the result can be a source of dread before every work shift.

6. Malicious coworkers There are people who annoy you by accident. And then there are the ones who focus on making life miserable for others.

These behaviors range from just being an inconsiderate jerk to outright harassment. At all levels, the stress is considerable for all involved, not just the person who may be targeted at any given time.

7. Inconsistent policies One person has an accident with a truck and he's verbally counseled about it. The next person who has a similar accident is suspended for three days without pay.

One firefighter becomes pregnant and is given an alternate duty assignment for the duration of her pregnancy. The next woman who gets pregnant is told that no such assignments are available.

Policies are supposed to create a sense of order and consistency in an organization, but when they are applied unevenly or based on individual preferences, the result is that no one can predict what will happen in any given circumstance. And that is a real source of stress.

8. Poor leadership It all comes down to this, doesn't it? When firefighters trust their leaders, from company officer on up, they feel more secure.

They have faith that their leaders will make decisions with everyone's best interests in mind. They believe that decisions are fair. They see their leaders as good role models and they respect them.

But when trust and respect are absent due to leaders behaving badly or being poorly prepared for their roles, the entire organization will be stressed.

9. Those bad calls A child who has been beaten to death by an abusive parent. The sight of a body that has fallen from the 10th story of a building. The smell of a badly burned person recovered from a fire.

These are hard things to experience, and many firefighters will benefit from some intervention after these tough calls. Many departments have different levels of support in place from peer teams to formal debriefs. The key to success with any intervention is to make sure that what is done helps and does not add to the stress already existing.

Stress is part of any job, and firefighters may have more than their share. But there also may be a tendency to focus on the stress that can develop as a result of difficult emergency response while other sources of stress might be completely overlooked. The best leaders look at mitigating all forms of workplace stress, and bravely look in the mirror as they make that assessment.

]]>When I read the recent article that declared firefighting to be the most stressful job in the United States, I remembered a conversation I had long ago with a friend who was a paramedic with the private ambulance service in town.

We were talking about stress, and he said, "I don't know why everyone always talks about going on calls as being stressful. That's the fun part of the job. Dealing with company managers, that's the stressful part of the job."

He was only partly kidding. Of course there are emergency calls that cause stress for first responders. All firefighters have at least one story about a call that really got to them. But firefighters are also often in a better position to deal with that kind of job stress as they have a built-in support group among their crew, where they can talk things out, make rude jokes, and find ways to move on.

This is not to say that firefighters don't suffer from stress. They do, but the sources of stress go far beyond just the occasional disturbing emergency response.

Based on years of working with fire departments across the country and many hours of conversation with firefighters of all ranks, I offer a list of some of the other sources of stress firefighters face.

1. Shift work When I was single, working 24-hour shifts was fantastic. When I had a family, shift work became much more difficult to manage. Partners of firefighters who are not in the emergency services often feel like single parents and may resent being stuck doing all the work at home when the other is on shift.

For firefighters in relationships with other emergency responders, finding reliable childcare for 24- or 48-hour shifts is a real challenge. And working opposite shifts can take its toll on any relationship.

2. Sleep deprivation Studies show that a large percentage of firefighters are chronically sleep deprived. This lack of quality sleep over time can contribute to physical and mental issues including immune system problems, more frequent accidents, changes in mood and temperament, and poor decision making.

3. Inadequate training Well-trained firefighters are confident and tend to make good decisions. They work well in teams. Poorly trained firefighters will either feel fearful or as if they have something to prove.

The result can be either holding back when action is needed or dangerous freelancing. Both outcomes are bad for the organization and dangerous for all involved.

4. Technical problems Gear that doesn't fit. Tools that don't work and are not replaced. Apparatus that is always breaking down when you need it most.

Firefighters are resourceful by nature and the occasional breakdown will be seen as a challenge. But chronic problems in this area will lead to the feeling that department leaders don't care about those who are doing the work in the field.

5. Bad crews You're stuck with these people for 12, 24, or 48 hours. So having coworkers who get on your nerves can become a source of real stress over time. These behaviors may not be deliberate — the dorm snorer, the talkative political extremist, the close talker with bad breath.

But if a crew cannot work through its differences, the result can be a source of dread before every work shift.

6. Malicious coworkers There are people who annoy you by accident. And then there are the ones who focus on making life miserable for others.

These behaviors range from just being an inconsiderate jerk to outright harassment. At all levels, the stress is considerable for all involved, not just the person who may be targeted at any given time.

7. Inconsistent policies One person has an accident with a truck and he's verbally counseled about it. The next person who has a similar accident is suspended for three days without pay.

One firefighter becomes pregnant and is given an alternate duty assignment for the duration of her pregnancy. The next woman who gets pregnant is told that no such assignments are available.

Policies are supposed to create a sense of order and consistency in an organization, but when they are applied unevenly or based on individual preferences, the result is that no one can predict what will happen in any given circumstance. And that is a real source of stress.

8. Poor leadership It all comes down to this, doesn't it? When firefighters trust their leaders, from company officer on up, they feel more secure.

They have faith that their leaders will make decisions with everyone's best interests in mind. They believe that decisions are fair. They see their leaders as good role models and they respect them.

But when trust and respect are absent due to leaders behaving badly or being poorly prepared for their roles, the entire organization will be stressed.

9. Those bad calls A child who has been beaten to death by an abusive parent. The sight of a body that has fallen from the 10th story of a building. The smell of a badly burned person recovered from a fire.

These are hard things to experience, and many firefighters will benefit from some intervention after these tough calls. Many departments have different levels of support in place from peer teams to formal debriefs. The key to success with any intervention is to make sure that what is done helps and does not add to the stress already existing.

Stress is part of any job, and firefighters may have more than their share. But there also may be a tendency to focus on the stress that can develop as a result of difficult emergency response while other sources of stress might be completely overlooked. The best leaders look at mitigating all forms of workplace stress, and bravely look in the mirror as they make that assessment.

]]>Firsthand account: 10 lessons from a massive floodMichael LeeTue, 15 Oct 2013 06:52:02 UTCOne of the largest disasters I have ever been involved with started in the middle of a plate of rigatoni when I heard our south units in Erie, Colo., speak of significant volumes of rain.

It was 17:30 on Sept. 11. I was in Longmont, Colo., just to the north of Erie. Mountain View Fire Protection District covers a large area, so I pushed the pasta aside and headed south in case things got interesting.

While driving, I noticed that all the irrigation and run-off ditches in the area were running high, but had not over-topped just yet. That was not surprising as it had been raining for the past two days.

The most recent rain event had caused localized flooding south of our Station 6 near Coal Creek. Blocked storm grates had increased the flooding, damaging many houses in that area.

I wasn't too worried that this would happen again. As I drove through a downpour, calls started coming in for downed power lines along a main artery into the town from the local interstate.

Multiple storm-related calls We blocked traffic in both directions for about a mile to prevent shock while waiting for the power company to repair about six separate line breaks. We lost power to the area around 18:15 as rain continued.

As crews waited for power company reps, the volume of water running down the road increased to the point where soil from local field was being washed downstream and starting to flood Coal Creek and run into the local high school. Normally our crews would assist, but another call to the middle school's fire alarm systems had thinned out our resources.

At about 18:30, I coordinated with local police, who had set up an emergency operations center, to establish any rescue necessities in the areas that had flooded before. The storm drain that had caused issues a week before was working well at this point.

But water continued to flow into Coal Creek; the rising water had overtopped the road, effectively trapping smaller vehicles and stalling others. No rescues were called and by 20:30 the rain subsided and vehicles were able to cross the Coal Creek Bridge. Power returned around 21:00 and the local EOC stood down.

Mutual aid I made it back to my station around 22:00 and got ready for bed. Around 02:00 I received a call from our dispatch center asking if we had any water-rescue resources that we could send up the canyons, as there were multiple collapsed structures and swiftwater rescues.

Our department has limited water rescue resources, but I called the number given me to inquire about specific needs prior to sending personnel to an unknown situation. The individual I called said that water rescue capabilities of all levels from all the surrounding fire districts had sent to Lyons or Boulder.

It quickly dawned on me that there were significant water-related disasters occurring along Boulder Creek, Lefthand Creek in Jamestown and most importantly the Saint Vrain River in Lyons. All three converge in our district.

I had to refuse to send our limited capabilities out of the region as there were no other resources left for what could be significant water rescues in the near future.

Preparing for the worst I contacted our chief of operations who was engaged in incident management at the Boulder EOC and set in motion a plan to staff extra apparatus and ensure we could deliver service to both sides of the district once the flood waters divided it.

I also called back swiftwater-rescue certified individuals to staff another specialized rescue apparatus. Our district had recently completed surface, flood and swiftwater training to include the use of a personal watercraft (Kawasaki Jet Ski) for water rescue scenarios.

I drove the district to assess the water levels at all the bridges that crossed the two creeks and one river. At 05:30, water was up to the bridge girders and rising quickly.

About this time came emergency traffic from the incident teams in Lyons and Jamestown advising all personnel downstream to evacuate due to collapses in multiple dams. Six dams had collapsed, 20 had overtopped and that a weather system parked over the area had dumped 14 inches of rain in four days.

In some areas the sheer volume of rainwater run-off caused walls of water 20-feet high to rush down canyons that had no vegetation due to recent wildland fires. And our district was in its path.

People trapped Water that normally running around 200 to 300 cubic feet per second had spread a half mile wide and was running 10,000 cubic feet per second. It spread out over the banks of the St. Vrain, flooding farm fields, destroying greenway paths and uprooting trees and utility poles without difficulty.

Our first call, around 08:30, was to rescue a couple trapped on their second floor as floodwaters washed through their first floor. When we arrived, the swiftwater training we recently completed had not prepared us for this level of impact.

Every few minutes, you could hear loud cracks as 12-inch circumference trees struck the bridge and shattered. You could also hear trees breaking as they fell into the creek or other trees.

Our first structure was the one with the highest risk and the greatest danger to the civilians. This home had beautiful stucco covered fence structures that funneled the water into and around their home. Horse trailers had been picked up and wrapped around trees. A pick-up truck sat abandoned 30 yards from the home with water up to its hood.

Dangerous 'rescue' Our plan called for a three-person team to cross the torrent to reach the couple who were using their phones to video the rescue. The first team member struggled but made it across. The second and third members lost their footing, forced to use the water rescue rope to swing them into the far side of the rushing waters.

Once reached by the team, the couple was ready to leave until they saw how they were going to have to cross the water. At this point they refused and would wait until the water lowered. We advised them that the rain was expected to increase, not decrease, but they refused.

Our team reluctantly left them in their home to continue the remainder of the mission. Three other homes in the area were contacted and all persons we talked to were perfectly fine with staying in their homes.

We advised them that staying was not be the best option as the water would be constant for a few days, may increase significantly and more than their homes could be lost. Later that day, a military six-by-six had to be brought in to rescue them; the six-by-six was almost lost to the volume of moving water.

Chin pinned to the car ceiling Over the next few days, our team rescued people stranded in homes, cars and trees. Most rescues were simple, putting personal flotation devices on our evacuees and guiding them through the water.

One rescue required using our watercraft to help extricate a young woman from her vehicle. The water had risen to her chin, pinning her head against her roof. We broke a window, pulled her out, put a PFD on her and moved her on the personal watercraft.

Our team was also tasked with accessing a gas line in a flooded field breached from repeated assaults from rushing debris. We found and secured the valve.

As we ran from call to call for water rescues, our district was evacuating areas in the flood's path. Getting from point A to point B was no longer a straight-line proposition. Road closures became required knowledge to reduce already extended response times.

Water moving at 10,000 cfs punishes structures, especially bridges. While many bridges withstood the pounding, often the water diverted around both ends of the structure and washed out the road base, collapsing the roads leading to the bridge.

Strained resources In most cases, evacuation just required going door to door. However, those with limited mobility needed assistance being evacuated. Teams of two helped move them to a patient collection point for evacuation on busses.

To make matters worse, on day two we were advised that the water supply systems had failed. There was no water pressure and the water was considered contaminated. The pipes supplying the water district had been washed away; in some areas missing pipe sections were 300-feet long.

Associated with the no-water issue, some areas were crippled with a no-flush directive as sewage systems failed. The district had portable toilets and pallets of drinking water delivered to all stations. Our command team worked with the FEMA resources through local EOCs to hand out water to residents in our area.

During our evacuation of the mobile home park we noticed that a large amount of water reaching this area was from a failed irrigation ditch. This was the second time in two months a wall in the ditch had failed.

An excavation company hired to dig a new flow path dug through three metal pipelines. As all the gas wells in the area had been shut down for prevention, no leak occurred. All energy companies were contacted to ensure that they would assess their local wells prior to turning them back on.

Once the ditch was diverted, we used four, 12,000 gpm pumps to remove the water from the mobile home park. After approximately 18 hours, the task was completed.

As the water recedes, significant challenges lay ahead. At this time, there are only eight known fatalities and 60 unaccounted for across the entire state. Estimates put losses at more than $2 billion dollars with the number of damaged homes at 17,500. More than 11,700 individuals were evacuated.

10 lessons learned With the event largely behind us, it is time to reflect on what went right and what went wrong. Here are the top 10 things we learned.

1. One cannot have enough water rescue equipment at a time like this. We rapidly used PFDs for the water rescues. In some cases, we forgot to retrieve them. By the time the local EOCs were able to order and replace them, we were about out.

2. Personal watercrafts work well in deeper water, but in water only a foot deep they can scoop mud into the impeller. An inflatable boat would work better in a shallow draft and has pinpoint access using ropes connected to the raft for stability and steering.

3. Swiftwater rescue training does a great job preparing an individual for water running around 500 cubic feet per second. This event was projected to be about 10,000 cubic feet per second, forcing rescue personnel to be slower and more careful.

4. During rescues our personnel were pelted with debris ranging from trees, railroad ties and barrels to colonies of prairie dogs. We also had to anticipate health impacts from failed sewer treatment plants, septic systems and collapsed or displaced oil storage battery tanks.

5. That people want to see you in times like this, doesn't mean that they want to leave with you. Some will assume they are fine under the circumstances until water or food run out, or until the level of water continues to rise as you said it would.

6. Most fire districts around us sent their water rescue capabilities into the mountains to assist areas with significant flooding. When that water ran into the foothill areas, there were very few water rescue capabilities left.

7. Emergency operations centers had to deal with looting, road closures, oil tank failures, water line breaks, electrical systems collapsing and all that water. While they faced their tasks as gracefully as possible, they were unable to meet the request for logistical needs in the field in a timely manner. Look for alternative means to gain resources or pre-negotiate contracts for equipment and services. We were lucky to be able to provide for the basic human needs of our stations early in this event.

8. Swiftwater rescues took much more time as the unit assigned to this task had to keep up on road closures to ensure initial access routes could be completed and end up at the right area in the shortest time possible.

9. While we were not faced with the violence or mass casualties, we all worked long hours under stressful conditions. After the week-long operation, crews became short-tempered, forgetful and lethargic. It is important to crews that this type of physiological response was normal. Crews should be monitored for the next few months for extended stress-related issues.

10. Many of the homes lost belonged to firefighters. These brothers and sisters should expect our support and assistance helping to get things back to as normal as they can be.

It will take a few more weeks to be able to provide running water and sewer to homes in some areas. It will take significant effort to replace the homes that were lost. We may not have road constructed to get people back to their homes before the winter arrives. It may take as long as two years to get roads and bridges back to the state they were before the 10-day rain.

But make no mistake, all the personnel involved in this event can take home the pride of a job well done. Neighborhoods, individuals, private organizations, rescue groups, local and regional fire districts and emergency management personnel came together to deal with the impacts of the greatest flooding seen in Colorado in maybe a millennium. I am proud and honored to have been able to serve with such an august group of professionals.

]]>One of the largest disasters I have ever been involved with started in the middle of a plate of rigatoni when I heard our south units in Erie, Colo., speak of significant volumes of rain.

It was 17:30 on Sept. 11. I was in Longmont, Colo., just to the north of Erie. Mountain View Fire Protection District covers a large area, so I pushed the pasta aside and headed south in case things got interesting.

While driving, I noticed that all the irrigation and run-off ditches in the area were running high, but had not over-topped just yet. That was not surprising as it had been raining for the past two days.

The most recent rain event had caused localized flooding south of our Station 6 near Coal Creek. Blocked storm grates had increased the flooding, damaging many houses in that area.

I wasn't too worried that this would happen again. As I drove through a downpour, calls started coming in for downed power lines along a main artery into the town from the local interstate.

Multiple storm-related calls We blocked traffic in both directions for about a mile to prevent shock while waiting for the power company to repair about six separate line breaks. We lost power to the area around 18:15 as rain continued.

As crews waited for power company reps, the volume of water running down the road increased to the point where soil from local field was being washed downstream and starting to flood Coal Creek and run into the local high school. Normally our crews would assist, but another call to the middle school's fire alarm systems had thinned out our resources.

At about 18:30, I coordinated with local police, who had set up an emergency operations center, to establish any rescue necessities in the areas that had flooded before. The storm drain that had caused issues a week before was working well at this point.

But water continued to flow into Coal Creek; the rising water had overtopped the road, effectively trapping smaller vehicles and stalling others. No rescues were called and by 20:30 the rain subsided and vehicles were able to cross the Coal Creek Bridge. Power returned around 21:00 and the local EOC stood down.

Mutual aid I made it back to my station around 22:00 and got ready for bed. Around 02:00 I received a call from our dispatch center asking if we had any water-rescue resources that we could send up the canyons, as there were multiple collapsed structures and swiftwater rescues.

Our department has limited water rescue resources, but I called the number given me to inquire about specific needs prior to sending personnel to an unknown situation. The individual I called said that water rescue capabilities of all levels from all the surrounding fire districts had sent to Lyons or Boulder.

It quickly dawned on me that there were significant water-related disasters occurring along Boulder Creek, Lefthand Creek in Jamestown and most importantly the Saint Vrain River in Lyons. All three converge in our district.

I had to refuse to send our limited capabilities out of the region as there were no other resources left for what could be significant water rescues in the near future.

Preparing for the worst I contacted our chief of operations who was engaged in incident management at the Boulder EOC and set in motion a plan to staff extra apparatus and ensure we could deliver service to both sides of the district once the flood waters divided it.

I also called back swiftwater-rescue certified individuals to staff another specialized rescue apparatus. Our district had recently completed surface, flood and swiftwater training to include the use of a personal watercraft (Kawasaki Jet Ski) for water rescue scenarios.

I drove the district to assess the water levels at all the bridges that crossed the two creeks and one river. At 05:30, water was up to the bridge girders and rising quickly.

About this time came emergency traffic from the incident teams in Lyons and Jamestown advising all personnel downstream to evacuate due to collapses in multiple dams. Six dams had collapsed, 20 had overtopped and that a weather system parked over the area had dumped 14 inches of rain in four days.

In some areas the sheer volume of rainwater run-off caused walls of water 20-feet high to rush down canyons that had no vegetation due to recent wildland fires. And our district was in its path.

People trapped Water that normally running around 200 to 300 cubic feet per second had spread a half mile wide and was running 10,000 cubic feet per second. It spread out over the banks of the St. Vrain, flooding farm fields, destroying greenway paths and uprooting trees and utility poles without difficulty.

Our first call, around 08:30, was to rescue a couple trapped on their second floor as floodwaters washed through their first floor. When we arrived, the swiftwater training we recently completed had not prepared us for this level of impact.

Every few minutes, you could hear loud cracks as 12-inch circumference trees struck the bridge and shattered. You could also hear trees breaking as they fell into the creek or other trees.

Our first structure was the one with the highest risk and the greatest danger to the civilians. This home had beautiful stucco covered fence structures that funneled the water into and around their home. Horse trailers had been picked up and wrapped around trees. A pick-up truck sat abandoned 30 yards from the home with water up to its hood.

Dangerous 'rescue' Our plan called for a three-person team to cross the torrent to reach the couple who were using their phones to video the rescue. The first team member struggled but made it across. The second and third members lost their footing, forced to use the water rescue rope to swing them into the far side of the rushing waters.

Once reached by the team, the couple was ready to leave until they saw how they were going to have to cross the water. At this point they refused and would wait until the water lowered. We advised them that the rain was expected to increase, not decrease, but they refused.

Our team reluctantly left them in their home to continue the remainder of the mission. Three other homes in the area were contacted and all persons we talked to were perfectly fine with staying in their homes.

We advised them that staying was not be the best option as the water would be constant for a few days, may increase significantly and more than their homes could be lost. Later that day, a military six-by-six had to be brought in to rescue them; the six-by-six was almost lost to the volume of moving water.

Chin pinned to the car ceiling Over the next few days, our team rescued people stranded in homes, cars and trees. Most rescues were simple, putting personal flotation devices on our evacuees and guiding them through the water.

One rescue required using our watercraft to help extricate a young woman from her vehicle. The water had risen to her chin, pinning her head against her roof. We broke a window, pulled her out, put a PFD on her and moved her on the personal watercraft.

Our team was also tasked with accessing a gas line in a flooded field breached from repeated assaults from rushing debris. We found and secured the valve.

As we ran from call to call for water rescues, our district was evacuating areas in the flood's path. Getting from point A to point B was no longer a straight-line proposition. Road closures became required knowledge to reduce already extended response times.

Water moving at 10,000 cfs punishes structures, especially bridges. While many bridges withstood the pounding, often the water diverted around both ends of the structure and washed out the road base, collapsing the roads leading to the bridge.

Strained resources In most cases, evacuation just required going door to door. However, those with limited mobility needed assistance being evacuated. Teams of two helped move them to a patient collection point for evacuation on busses.

To make matters worse, on day two we were advised that the water supply systems had failed. There was no water pressure and the water was considered contaminated. The pipes supplying the water district had been washed away; in some areas missing pipe sections were 300-feet long.

Associated with the no-water issue, some areas were crippled with a no-flush directive as sewage systems failed. The district had portable toilets and pallets of drinking water delivered to all stations. Our command team worked with the FEMA resources through local EOCs to hand out water to residents in our area.

During our evacuation of the mobile home park we noticed that a large amount of water reaching this area was from a failed irrigation ditch. This was the second time in two months a wall in the ditch had failed.

An excavation company hired to dig a new flow path dug through three metal pipelines. As all the gas wells in the area had been shut down for prevention, no leak occurred. All energy companies were contacted to ensure that they would assess their local wells prior to turning them back on.

Once the ditch was diverted, we used four, 12,000 gpm pumps to remove the water from the mobile home park. After approximately 18 hours, the task was completed.

As the water recedes, significant challenges lay ahead. At this time, there are only eight known fatalities and 60 unaccounted for across the entire state. Estimates put losses at more than $2 billion dollars with the number of damaged homes at 17,500. More than 11,700 individuals were evacuated.

10 lessons learned With the event largely behind us, it is time to reflect on what went right and what went wrong. Here are the top 10 things we learned.

1. One cannot have enough water rescue equipment at a time like this. We rapidly used PFDs for the water rescues. In some cases, we forgot to retrieve them. By the time the local EOCs were able to order and replace them, we were about out.

2. Personal watercrafts work well in deeper water, but in water only a foot deep they can scoop mud into the impeller. An inflatable boat would work better in a shallow draft and has pinpoint access using ropes connected to the raft for stability and steering.

3. Swiftwater rescue training does a great job preparing an individual for water running around 500 cubic feet per second. This event was projected to be about 10,000 cubic feet per second, forcing rescue personnel to be slower and more careful.

4. During rescues our personnel were pelted with debris ranging from trees, railroad ties and barrels to colonies of prairie dogs. We also had to anticipate health impacts from failed sewer treatment plants, septic systems and collapsed or displaced oil storage battery tanks.

5. That people want to see you in times like this, doesn't mean that they want to leave with you. Some will assume they are fine under the circumstances until water or food run out, or until the level of water continues to rise as you said it would.

6. Most fire districts around us sent their water rescue capabilities into the mountains to assist areas with significant flooding. When that water ran into the foothill areas, there were very few water rescue capabilities left.

7. Emergency operations centers had to deal with looting, road closures, oil tank failures, water line breaks, electrical systems collapsing and all that water. While they faced their tasks as gracefully as possible, they were unable to meet the request for logistical needs in the field in a timely manner. Look for alternative means to gain resources or pre-negotiate contracts for equipment and services. We were lucky to be able to provide for the basic human needs of our stations early in this event.

8. Swiftwater rescues took much more time as the unit assigned to this task had to keep up on road closures to ensure initial access routes could be completed and end up at the right area in the shortest time possible.

9. While we were not faced with the violence or mass casualties, we all worked long hours under stressful conditions. After the week-long operation, crews became short-tempered, forgetful and lethargic. It is important to crews that this type of physiological response was normal. Crews should be monitored for the next few months for extended stress-related issues.

10. Many of the homes lost belonged to firefighters. These brothers and sisters should expect our support and assistance helping to get things back to as normal as they can be.

It will take a few more weeks to be able to provide running water and sewer to homes in some areas. It will take significant effort to replace the homes that were lost. We may not have road constructed to get people back to their homes before the winter arrives. It may take as long as two years to get roads and bridges back to the state they were before the 10-day rain.

But make no mistake, all the personnel involved in this event can take home the pride of a job well done. Neighborhoods, individuals, private organizations, rescue groups, local and regional fire districts and emergency management personnel came together to deal with the impacts of the greatest flooding seen in Colorado in maybe a millennium. I am proud and honored to have been able to serve with such an august group of professionals.

]]>Have a Plan for the Tactical'Captain Bob' SmithWed, 2 Jul 2008 11:14:57 UTCToo many candidates get sucked into concentrating too much on the check-off list for their tactical without realizing it. In the process, they lose control of the fire and their score gets hammered.

What's your best tactic for rescue or knocking down the fire? An aggressive attack on the fire! Go fight the fire with your resources. In the process you will get the necessary boxes checked off on the rating sheet, could put out the fire and get a top score.

Yes, you want to cover all the bases to make sure the boxes are checked off on the rating sheet, but again, isn’t the best tactic for extinguishment and rescue an aggressive fire attack?

However, concentrate on a solid plan. Many candidates put too much into play out of sequence early on in the exercise and make the problem bigger than what the raters have actually given them. Often, candidates will give assignments to units to place positive pressure ventilation, a crew to pull ceilings, assign more than one unit to carry out search rescue and other tasks, call the canteen truck, and add a rescue problem that wasn't given to them.

This is before they have the first line on the fire, a RIT team assigned, utilities pulled and a crew sent to the roof for ventilation. The fire gets away from them and they are out of equipment and resources before they realize what happened. How long can you tread water?

These are major areas the raters will be checking off on your scoring sheet that can rack up big points. You must come out swinging. Once you have proven you can handle the call from the beginning, you're nailing it. As soon as the raters know you got it, they will help you over the top to that next badge. It's a beautiful thing when it happens.

Have a planHere's a simple example of a fire problem: You give an on-scene size up at a fire involving a residence with fire blowing out a bedroom window. You order your engineer to hook up as you and your firefighter start pulling lines. If you followed this sequence, you have just lost the fire!

The problem here is you went from size up directly into tactics. Most candidates start off on the right foot with a size up of the fire. Then they make a fatal mistake in going directly into tactics without a plan. They confuse tactics with a plan. Once given the fire problem, focus all your energies on developing a plan.

Without a plan, you are out of control. What was your plan on this fire problem? By just taking a few more moments, you would have one. When confronted, candidates that go immediately to tactics regroup and say, "My plan is to confine and put out the bedroom fire." O.K., but if you didn't say it, you didn't have a plan. Size up, plan, and then tactics.

]]>Too many candidates get sucked into concentrating too much on the check-off list for their tactical without realizing it. In the process, they lose control of the fire and their score gets hammered.

What's your best tactic for rescue or knocking down the fire? An aggressive attack on the fire! Go fight the fire with your resources. In the process you will get the necessary boxes checked off on the rating sheet, could put out the fire and get a top score.

Yes, you want to cover all the bases to make sure the boxes are checked off on the rating sheet, but again, isn’t the best tactic for extinguishment and rescue an aggressive fire attack?

However, concentrate on a solid plan. Many candidates put too much into play out of sequence early on in the exercise and make the problem bigger than what the raters have actually given them. Often, candidates will give assignments to units to place positive pressure ventilation, a crew to pull ceilings, assign more than one unit to carry out search rescue and other tasks, call the canteen truck, and add a rescue problem that wasn't given to them.

This is before they have the first line on the fire, a RIT team assigned, utilities pulled and a crew sent to the roof for ventilation. The fire gets away from them and they are out of equipment and resources before they realize what happened. How long can you tread water?

These are major areas the raters will be checking off on your scoring sheet that can rack up big points. You must come out swinging. Once you have proven you can handle the call from the beginning, you're nailing it. As soon as the raters know you got it, they will help you over the top to that next badge. It's a beautiful thing when it happens.

Have a planHere's a simple example of a fire problem: You give an on-scene size up at a fire involving a residence with fire blowing out a bedroom window. You order your engineer to hook up as you and your firefighter start pulling lines. If you followed this sequence, you have just lost the fire!

The problem here is you went from size up directly into tactics. Most candidates start off on the right foot with a size up of the fire. Then they make a fatal mistake in going directly into tactics without a plan. They confuse tactics with a plan. Once given the fire problem, focus all your energies on developing a plan.

Without a plan, you are out of control. What was your plan on this fire problem? By just taking a few more moments, you would have one. When confronted, candidates that go immediately to tactics regroup and say, "My plan is to confine and put out the bedroom fire." O.K., but if you didn't say it, you didn't have a plan. Size up, plan, and then tactics.

]]>Firefighter communication: How to avoid dangerous trapsMark van der Feyst Mon, 9 Feb 2015 00:52:03 UTCCommunications plays an important part within our society as it forms the very basis upon which we operate, function, live and relate to each other.

In the fire service, communication plays an even bigger role. It is the lifeline between firefighters working on the fireground, as it also is in the station during non-emergency times.

Communication is constantly and consistently identified as an area for improvement in the fire service.

A majority of NIOSH line-of-duty-death reports highlight how communications was either nonexistent or poorly established, thus leading to a fatality or a serious injury. The recommendation to improve, train, replace or even update communication systems is consistent in these LODD reports.

Stop freelancing Whenever there is a communication breakdown between working crews and incident command or other sector officers, the dominos of becoming a handicapped firefighter start to line quickly. One of the biggest concerns we have individually and collectively is the safety and well-being of each other; this includes preventing freelancing from occurring.

Freelancing is when we do not communicate to someone, be it an officer, sector officer, incident command or another firefighter what we are doing or where we are going. When this happens, disaster usually strikes, resulting in a bad outcome.

Communication on the fire ground can be very overwhelming, especially when it is a large event and involves numerous crew members, mutual aid and outside agencies.

There are two main ways in which we can communicate with each other: by a portable radio or face to face. Of the two, face-to-face communication is the best as it allows for instant receipt of the message and also provides other means of communication to take place such as facial gestures and body language.

Communication basics Using a portable radio provides for long-distance, large-area communication. A portable radio is an excellent piece of technology and very useful for our profession. It does, however, breakdown operationally and requires a user to use the device in the proper manner.

Communication requires a sender and a receiver. A common breakdown in communication is between the sender and the receiver. Either the receiver did not receive the message or the sender did not send the message properly.

Communications needs to be in a clear and simple format so that anyone using a portable radio or even speaking face to face can easily understand the message.

The order model is a standard way to transmit messages over a portable device ensuring that both the sender and the receiver understand each other.

This is where the receiver repeats back to the sender the message. By doing this, it lets the sender know that the message was received and understood by the other party.

Training on this method of communicating will help to eliminate the dominos that will line up when communications start to descend on the fireground. And, it will help prevent a firefighter or crew form becoming handicapped.

]]>Communications plays an important part within our society as it forms the very basis upon which we operate, function, live and relate to each other.

In the fire service, communication plays an even bigger role. It is the lifeline between firefighters working on the fireground, as it also is in the station during non-emergency times.

Communication is constantly and consistently identified as an area for improvement in the fire service.

A majority of NIOSH line-of-duty-death reports highlight how communications was either nonexistent or poorly established, thus leading to a fatality or a serious injury. The recommendation to improve, train, replace or even update communication systems is consistent in these LODD reports.

Stop freelancing Whenever there is a communication breakdown between working crews and incident command or other sector officers, the dominos of becoming a handicapped firefighter start to line quickly. One of the biggest concerns we have individually and collectively is the safety and well-being of each other; this includes preventing freelancing from occurring.

Freelancing is when we do not communicate to someone, be it an officer, sector officer, incident command or another firefighter what we are doing or where we are going. When this happens, disaster usually strikes, resulting in a bad outcome.

Communication on the fire ground can be very overwhelming, especially when it is a large event and involves numerous crew members, mutual aid and outside agencies.

There are two main ways in which we can communicate with each other: by a portable radio or face to face. Of the two, face-to-face communication is the best as it allows for instant receipt of the message and also provides other means of communication to take place such as facial gestures and body language.

Communication basics Using a portable radio provides for long-distance, large-area communication. A portable radio is an excellent piece of technology and very useful for our profession. It does, however, breakdown operationally and requires a user to use the device in the proper manner.

Communication requires a sender and a receiver. A common breakdown in communication is between the sender and the receiver. Either the receiver did not receive the message or the sender did not send the message properly.

Communications needs to be in a clear and simple format so that anyone using a portable radio or even speaking face to face can easily understand the message.

The order model is a standard way to transmit messages over a portable device ensuring that both the sender and the receiver understand each other.

This is where the receiver repeats back to the sender the message. By doing this, it lets the sender know that the message was received and understood by the other party.

Training on this method of communicating will help to eliminate the dominos that will line up when communications start to descend on the fireground. And, it will help prevent a firefighter or crew form becoming handicapped.

Some fire service leaders expect that fire departments across the United States will see a paradigm shift from just emergency response services to a comprehensive community risk reduction and management focus.

You hear it as you talk with fire service leaders across the nation. National Fire Academy Executive Fire Officer research documents are being developed and presented on this very topic. It was a discussion topic at an International Association of Fire Chief's strategic planning meeting.

So why do we need to change directions?

The fire service already handles the majority of emergencies and crisis within the community. We need to focus on a proactive approach.

This would allow for not only a safer community but help focus on the quality of life of our residents. Preventing incidents from occurring significantly reduces cost, improves the quality of life and increases the potential for economic sustainability.

New rules of engagement The impact of budget cuts is witnessed almost daily in the fire service with browning out of stations, closing of companies, staff reduction through attrition and yes even critical staffing reductions by employees being laid off. The fire service has reached a new fold in its history.

With this new fold occurring we must adapt our philosophies, strategies and even our beloved tactics.

When corporations and builders engineer and construct disposable buildings then we need to tactically focus our efforts on engineering and code requirements of automatic fire suppression systems and early detection systems. When the owners and builders ignore this option and a fire catastrophe strikes, we need to use the new rules of tactical engagement.

Fire departments will need to shift from traditional emergency responses services and transition into a combination of emergency responses services with a primary focus on being a community reduction team focusing on public safety in a multidimensional approach of safe buildings through code enforcement, building requirements, environmental impact, community safety, responder safety, community health and wellness and community risk reduction through research and education.

We will become the mother ship that guides critical thinking in all aspects of safety throughout our community.

The fire service will need to focus on assembling a set of best practices in risk reduction and work diligently to manage risk via educating our communities, proactive engineering practices and code enforcement.

However, the fire service does not collect data well at all. We have to transition to being very analytical of collecting certain complete and accurate quantifiable data based upon a standard data model for comparative benchmarking studies.

The battle is won however on the proactive side through risk reduction and risk management. The long-term impacts will benefit everyone. Our success will be determined by not solely the retrospective data but community and family buy in. This relates to the true potential risk that exists, verses how it has been reduced

]]>By Douglas Cline Feb. 8, 2011Updated June 13, 2014

Some fire service leaders expect that fire departments across the United States will see a paradigm shift from just emergency response services to a comprehensive community risk reduction and management focus.

You hear it as you talk with fire service leaders across the nation. National Fire Academy Executive Fire Officer research documents are being developed and presented on this very topic. It was a discussion topic at an International Association of Fire Chief's strategic planning meeting.

So why do we need to change directions?

The fire service already handles the majority of emergencies and crisis within the community. We need to focus on a proactive approach.

This would allow for not only a safer community but help focus on the quality of life of our residents. Preventing incidents from occurring significantly reduces cost, improves the quality of life and increases the potential for economic sustainability.

New rules of engagement The impact of budget cuts is witnessed almost daily in the fire service with browning out of stations, closing of companies, staff reduction through attrition and yes even critical staffing reductions by employees being laid off. The fire service has reached a new fold in its history.

With this new fold occurring we must adapt our philosophies, strategies and even our beloved tactics.

When corporations and builders engineer and construct disposable buildings then we need to tactically focus our efforts on engineering and code requirements of automatic fire suppression systems and early detection systems. When the owners and builders ignore this option and a fire catastrophe strikes, we need to use the new rules of tactical engagement.

Fire departments will need to shift from traditional emergency responses services and transition into a combination of emergency responses services with a primary focus on being a community reduction team focusing on public safety in a multidimensional approach of safe buildings through code enforcement, building requirements, environmental impact, community safety, responder safety, community health and wellness and community risk reduction through research and education.

We will become the mother ship that guides critical thinking in all aspects of safety throughout our community.

The fire service will need to focus on assembling a set of best practices in risk reduction and work diligently to manage risk via educating our communities, proactive engineering practices and code enforcement.

However, the fire service does not collect data well at all. We have to transition to being very analytical of collecting certain complete and accurate quantifiable data based upon a standard data model for comparative benchmarking studies.

The battle is won however on the proactive side through risk reduction and risk management. The long-term impacts will benefit everyone. Our success will be determined by not solely the retrospective data but community and family buy in. This relates to the true potential risk that exists, verses how it has been reduced

Intro: The goal of our program is to provide you the opportunity to enhance your career through continued higher education. This program is designed for those individuals who already possess an Associate's degree with a background in the fire service. The mission of the Fire Service Management (FSM) Program is to provide you with highly trained and qualified instructors with various fields of study in the FSM program. We are committed to the enhancement and advancement of fire service professionals through higher education. The FSM program is an accredited IFSAC program and a long time participant in the Federal Emergency Services Higher Education (FESHE) program.

Where did your company name originate from? SIU Carbondale was originally known as Southern Illinois Normal College when it was founded in 1869 by the Illinois Legislature. As the SIU system grew in the mid to late 1900's, it became known as SIU Carbondale.

What was the inspiration behind starting your company? The need for affordable education throughout the state of Illinois.

Why do you believe your products are essential to the Fire community? In the last 20 years, education has continued to grow within the EMS, fire and police community. As an IFSAC accredited and FESHE recognized school, we want to provide the necessary education for everyone involved in emergency services giving them the opportunity to learn and move up the promotion ladder.

What has been the biggest challenge your company has faced? The biggest challenge that we have faced is enrollment. With approximately 50 upper division schools offering degrees and the decline in fire departments offering tuition reimbursement to their personnel we have to work hard and show why the student should attend our university versus somewhere else.

What makes your company unique? We are unique that our programs are considered online, but in doing that we are using Adobe Connect so that when class is in session the distant learning students are an active part of the class as if they were sitting there with everyone else. There are still many people who do not like complete online programs and this has helped them go to school and still get the face-to-face contact they want.

What do your customers like best about you and your products? The flexibility of our instructors, the teaching schedule and the ability to transfer training in for college credit.

What is the most rewarding part of serving the first responder community? Watching the students complete their degrees and then move on to higher ranking jobs.

What’s next for your company? Any upcoming new projects or initiatives? As we continue to market our program nationally, we hope to increase our enrollment by at least 20 percent each of the next three years. We are trying to put our program on the ground in Calif. at Mt. San Antonio College.

Intro: The goal of our program is to provide you the opportunity to enhance your career through continued higher education. This program is designed for those individuals who already possess an Associate's degree with a background in the fire service. The mission of the Fire Service Management (FSM) Program is to provide you with highly trained and qualified instructors with various fields of study in the FSM program. We are committed to the enhancement and advancement of fire service professionals through higher education. The FSM program is an accredited IFSAC program and a long time participant in the Federal Emergency Services Higher Education (FESHE) program.

Where did your company name originate from? SIU Carbondale was originally known as Southern Illinois Normal College when it was founded in 1869 by the Illinois Legislature. As the SIU system grew in the mid to late 1900's, it became known as SIU Carbondale.

What was the inspiration behind starting your company? The need for affordable education throughout the state of Illinois.

Why do you believe your products are essential to the Fire community? In the last 20 years, education has continued to grow within the EMS, fire and police community. As an IFSAC accredited and FESHE recognized school, we want to provide the necessary education for everyone involved in emergency services giving them the opportunity to learn and move up the promotion ladder.

What has been the biggest challenge your company has faced? The biggest challenge that we have faced is enrollment. With approximately 50 upper division schools offering degrees and the decline in fire departments offering tuition reimbursement to their personnel we have to work hard and show why the student should attend our university versus somewhere else.

What makes your company unique? We are unique that our programs are considered online, but in doing that we are using Adobe Connect so that when class is in session the distant learning students are an active part of the class as if they were sitting there with everyone else. There are still many people who do not like complete online programs and this has helped them go to school and still get the face-to-face contact they want.

What do your customers like best about you and your products? The flexibility of our instructors, the teaching schedule and the ability to transfer training in for college credit.

What is the most rewarding part of serving the first responder community? Watching the students complete their degrees and then move on to higher ranking jobs.

What’s next for your company? Any upcoming new projects or initiatives? As we continue to market our program nationally, we hope to increase our enrollment by at least 20 percent each of the next three years. We are trying to put our program on the ground in Calif. at Mt. San Antonio College.

]]>Food for Thought at the Firehouse KitchenFred LaFeminaMon, 7 Jan 2008 14:21:04 UTCDuring my early years on the job, I would not even think of ribbing my officer or the chiefs. But today, with a smile, some of the guys will forward funny dialogue in my direction. Although I could take this as a sign of disrespect, it is nothing even close to that. Not always, but sometimes, I kind of set these guys up to give it to me good, and boy do they do so.

Guess what? It is OK because in the firehouse we can have all the fun we want, but on the fireground it must be business and only business. Once that line is clearly defined there are few if any problems concerning fire or emergency operations. And brothers and sisters, do not think for one moment I do not shovel it back in their direction — I can be kind of funny myself at times. Usually when I think about a particular ribbing they gave me, it brings a little smile to my face and I get another chuckle out of a pretty funny line used on me.

The main point is that although we are laughing and fooling around, a lot of good, informative information can come out of these periods. If the group of brothers and sisters had a unique incident or a tragedy that occurred during the shift -- or tour, as we call it in NYC – it's often discussed at the kitchen table. Not only can you learn from some of this information, it is also a type of counseling in a way.

For much of the time, firefighters do not like to talk to strangers or professionals concerning their feelings, but will open up and talk freely with the other firefighters. I have found this to help tremendously in a personal way. This especially applied after 9/11, where your only focus was the task at hand, however enormous and daunting it was. I would sit sometimes with the other brothers and just talk; I didn't even need an answer, I was just getting things off my chest.

I am sure there were many of us in this position who were also helped by this informal session of therapy. So if and when you need to say something, throw it out on the kitchen table. There will be at least one brother or sister, possibly a senior firefighter or officer, who may just have an answer or a statement of support for you. In addition, officers should be aware that some of the statements made are signs that members need help. It all goes to show the value of this kitchen time.

Sharing informationThe kitchen at the change of tours and the roll call can also allow officers and members to exchange a good amount of information concerning firefighting and emergencies, It provides a captive audience and the opportunity to discuss the possibilities of the upcoming tour as well as the events that transpired on the previous one. You usually receive your assignment during this period and your size-up of the tour should start at that moment.

Something as simple as the weather and a discussion can create possible scenarios you may encounter that day or night. I know for me a windy day conjures up many horrors that may occur if I respond to a fire: extension of fire to exposures especially attached wood frame structures has me thinking of multiple alarms; a high-rise fire could potentially become an extreme wind-driven fire that always brings problems to the fireground.

Forecasts of snow and ice will inhibit the rapid placement of hand lines to confine or extinguish the fire, and frozen or out–of-service hydrants will cause delays that could be potentially disastrous to the brothers and sisters, not to mention the unfortunate people whose house is on fire. For the left coast folks, I can only imagine what the chiefs are thinking about concerning winds and forest fires. There are numerous possibilities on issues to be discussed during these periods. Officers and firefighters should use this time and be pro-active by discussing a hot topic, a recent response or job and the possible problems that could arise during the tour.

Most importantly, be ready to ride if you are riding. If you relieve someone, ensure you are in your proper uniform, your gear is on the apparatus or at the assigned riding position and you have notified the officer so that he/she can amend the riding list. Do not board the apparatus if you are not expected to be on it, as how will the officer be accountable for you? These are just some of the things to think about during these times.

One final thing. For all you classic rock fans, a very important debate arose the other morning in the kitchen here. Which band had more musical talent: The Who or Led Zeppelin? Personally I stated Led Zeppelin but one of the senior firefighters sided with The Who. The members were kind of concerned because this senior firefighter keeps them nice and happy with his gourmet meals. But while I said that may well be the case, I pointed out that I do the payroll and that they all needed money to pay for those gourmet meals. Lots of silence and oh so golden! ]]>During my early years on the job, I would not even think of ribbing my officer or the chiefs. But today, with a smile, some of the guys will forward funny dialogue in my direction. Although I could take this as a sign of disrespect, it is nothing even close to that. Not always, but sometimes, I kind of set these guys up to give it to me good, and boy do they do so.

Guess what? It is OK because in the firehouse we can have all the fun we want, but on the fireground it must be business and only business. Once that line is clearly defined there are few if any problems concerning fire or emergency operations. And brothers and sisters, do not think for one moment I do not shovel it back in their direction — I can be kind of funny myself at times. Usually when I think about a particular ribbing they gave me, it brings a little smile to my face and I get another chuckle out of a pretty funny line used on me.

The main point is that although we are laughing and fooling around, a lot of good, informative information can come out of these periods. If the group of brothers and sisters had a unique incident or a tragedy that occurred during the shift -- or tour, as we call it in NYC – it's often discussed at the kitchen table. Not only can you learn from some of this information, it is also a type of counseling in a way.

For much of the time, firefighters do not like to talk to strangers or professionals concerning their feelings, but will open up and talk freely with the other firefighters. I have found this to help tremendously in a personal way. This especially applied after 9/11, where your only focus was the task at hand, however enormous and daunting it was. I would sit sometimes with the other brothers and just talk; I didn't even need an answer, I was just getting things off my chest.

I am sure there were many of us in this position who were also helped by this informal session of therapy. So if and when you need to say something, throw it out on the kitchen table. There will be at least one brother or sister, possibly a senior firefighter or officer, who may just have an answer or a statement of support for you. In addition, officers should be aware that some of the statements made are signs that members need help. It all goes to show the value of this kitchen time.

Sharing informationThe kitchen at the change of tours and the roll call can also allow officers and members to exchange a good amount of information concerning firefighting and emergencies, It provides a captive audience and the opportunity to discuss the possibilities of the upcoming tour as well as the events that transpired on the previous one. You usually receive your assignment during this period and your size-up of the tour should start at that moment.

Something as simple as the weather and a discussion can create possible scenarios you may encounter that day or night. I know for me a windy day conjures up many horrors that may occur if I respond to a fire: extension of fire to exposures especially attached wood frame structures has me thinking of multiple alarms; a high-rise fire could potentially become an extreme wind-driven fire that always brings problems to the fireground.

Forecasts of snow and ice will inhibit the rapid placement of hand lines to confine or extinguish the fire, and frozen or out–of-service hydrants will cause delays that could be potentially disastrous to the brothers and sisters, not to mention the unfortunate people whose house is on fire. For the left coast folks, I can only imagine what the chiefs are thinking about concerning winds and forest fires. There are numerous possibilities on issues to be discussed during these periods. Officers and firefighters should use this time and be pro-active by discussing a hot topic, a recent response or job and the possible problems that could arise during the tour.

Most importantly, be ready to ride if you are riding. If you relieve someone, ensure you are in your proper uniform, your gear is on the apparatus or at the assigned riding position and you have notified the officer so that he/she can amend the riding list. Do not board the apparatus if you are not expected to be on it, as how will the officer be accountable for you? These are just some of the things to think about during these times.

One final thing. For all you classic rock fans, a very important debate arose the other morning in the kitchen here. Which band had more musical talent: The Who or Led Zeppelin? Personally I stated Led Zeppelin but one of the senior firefighters sided with The Who. The members were kind of concerned because this senior firefighter keeps them nice and happy with his gourmet meals. But while I said that may well be the case, I pointed out that I do the payroll and that they all needed money to pay for those gourmet meals. Lots of silence and oh so golden! ]]>Sorry, our Department Can't Comply with Rehab StandardsPerry Denehy Sponsored by MasimoMon, 24 Nov 2008 13:19:30 UTCThe National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) 1584 Standard on the Rehabilitation Process for Members During Emergency Operations and Training Exercises, attained "standard" status in March of 2008. Emergency services organizations must begin implementing the standard this year. Certainly it is the desire of every fire and EMS administrator to protect their department members in the areas of health and safety. As time proceeds, it will be interesting to monitor the a cceptance and practical application of these standards. Can we expect the "perfect emergency scene" to exist throughout the nation consistently? Where will departments fall short? Are these mandates doable, especially with shrinking budgets and manpower limitations?

Let's look at the nine key components of NFPA 1584, highlighting some practical concerns. I will be taking the "devil's advocate" role in responding to the requirements of the standard. You may note an air of cynicism that is seldom heard in the fire service. This is a very serious topic and my approach is only to show that "If there is a will, there is a way." Organize your team and resources and continue networking in order to achieve success.

Relief from climatic (weather/environmental) conditions:Firefighting is done in extreme weather conditions. Mother Nature doesn't provide our world with moderate temperatures and working conditions. How can we escape the extreme heat or cold? We just won't respond to calls if it is too hot or cold.

Rest and recovery:Depending on how many units are in staging, I'd love to take a 30 minute break with every bottle change. We operate two-man engine companies and the closest mutual aid company is twelve minutes out. "Hey chief, I'm tired, can I go lay down?" We need a 3rd alarm just to get enough bodies to the scene.

Cooling or re-warming:The only heat source is the inferno we're here to put out. Wearing all this turnout gear causes me to dehydrate before I even get into the structure. City council dinged our request for air conditioned cabs. We're lucky they let us have the air conditioners on at the firehouse. My idea of cooling is sit in the shade of the ladder truck.

Re-hydration: Where's the closest vending machine? No one filled the engines water cooler today. We used to carry bottled water on the rigs but the guys would drink them during truck checks. Hopefully the neighbors will show up with some lemonade to help out America's Bravest. Fire trucks have water in them, don't they? Drink that water.

Calorie and electrolyte replacement:Hey neighbor, while you're making that lemonade, how about a turkey on rye with extra pickles? No name, free game. The mobile canteen showed up with day old doughnuts and week old bologna sandwiches. Luckily I ate a big lunch because this looks like a long one. That's why we never implemented a physical training program. We like to have our guys with some extra fat on them.

Medical Monitoring:What do you mean my pulse and blood pressure are too high? That is my NORMAL resting pulse and BP. Maybe these extra few pounds I've been carrying around make it tough. After a couple cups of coffee and some doughnuts, they will go back to normal. Chief needs three more hand lines stretched and we need all bodies.

EMS Treatment in accordance with local protocol:Where are the medics? We've got an apartment building roaring and the EMS rigs are two blocks away. Just give me some O2 and I will be fine. It's not bad chest pain. Probably the chili dogs with onion I ate for lunch. I don't want to look soft in front of the young guys.

Member accountability:I lost my tags. My crew got split up and the captain detailed me to re-fill air bottles. I don't want to look soft by hanging out in rehab.

Release from rehabilitation: This will not be a problem. You either get back to work or go to the hospital in the bus. It feels kinda good here in the air conditioned rehab unit. With all that 5" that needs to be re-loaded, maybe I need to drink another liter of juice.

We all know that changing old habits comes slow for some. Budget constraints do create real challenges in meeting the needs of your department. Truly, for any department to be 100 % compliant in meeting these standards, much planning and focusing will be required. Develop a team of interested staff members to research, develop and implement these life-saving standards. Although it may take months to reach your ultimate goal, it is never too late to make improvements. Best of luck with your efforts to ensure the health and safety of your people. They are worth it!

]]>The National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) 1584 Standard on the Rehabilitation Process for Members During Emergency Operations and Training Exercises, attained "standard" status in March of 2008. Emergency services organizations must begin implementing the standard this year. Certainly it is the desire of every fire and EMS administrator to protect their department members in the areas of health and safety. As time proceeds, it will be interesting to monitor the a cceptance and practical application of these standards. Can we expect the "perfect emergency scene" to exist throughout the nation consistently? Where will departments fall short? Are these mandates doable, especially with shrinking budgets and manpower limitations?

Let's look at the nine key components of NFPA 1584, highlighting some practical concerns. I will be taking the "devil's advocate" role in responding to the requirements of the standard. You may note an air of cynicism that is seldom heard in the fire service. This is a very serious topic and my approach is only to show that "If there is a will, there is a way." Organize your team and resources and continue networking in order to achieve success.

Relief from climatic (weather/environmental) conditions:Firefighting is done in extreme weather conditions. Mother Nature doesn't provide our world with moderate temperatures and working conditions. How can we escape the extreme heat or cold? We just won't respond to calls if it is too hot or cold.

Rest and recovery:Depending on how many units are in staging, I'd love to take a 30 minute break with every bottle change. We operate two-man engine companies and the closest mutual aid company is twelve minutes out. "Hey chief, I'm tired, can I go lay down?" We need a 3rd alarm just to get enough bodies to the scene.

Cooling or re-warming:The only heat source is the inferno we're here to put out. Wearing all this turnout gear causes me to dehydrate before I even get into the structure. City council dinged our request for air conditioned cabs. We're lucky they let us have the air conditioners on at the firehouse. My idea of cooling is sit in the shade of the ladder truck.

Re-hydration: Where's the closest vending machine? No one filled the engines water cooler today. We used to carry bottled water on the rigs but the guys would drink them during truck checks. Hopefully the neighbors will show up with some lemonade to help out America's Bravest. Fire trucks have water in them, don't they? Drink that water.

Calorie and electrolyte replacement:Hey neighbor, while you're making that lemonade, how about a turkey on rye with extra pickles? No name, free game. The mobile canteen showed up with day old doughnuts and week old bologna sandwiches. Luckily I ate a big lunch because this looks like a long one. That's why we never implemented a physical training program. We like to have our guys with some extra fat on them.

Medical Monitoring:What do you mean my pulse and blood pressure are too high? That is my NORMAL resting pulse and BP. Maybe these extra few pounds I've been carrying around make it tough. After a couple cups of coffee and some doughnuts, they will go back to normal. Chief needs three more hand lines stretched and we need all bodies.

EMS Treatment in accordance with local protocol:Where are the medics? We've got an apartment building roaring and the EMS rigs are two blocks away. Just give me some O2 and I will be fine. It's not bad chest pain. Probably the chili dogs with onion I ate for lunch. I don't want to look soft in front of the young guys.

Member accountability:I lost my tags. My crew got split up and the captain detailed me to re-fill air bottles. I don't want to look soft by hanging out in rehab.

Release from rehabilitation: This will not be a problem. You either get back to work or go to the hospital in the bus. It feels kinda good here in the air conditioned rehab unit. With all that 5" that needs to be re-loaded, maybe I need to drink another liter of juice.

We all know that changing old habits comes slow for some. Budget constraints do create real challenges in meeting the needs of your department. Truly, for any department to be 100 % compliant in meeting these standards, much planning and focusing will be required. Develop a team of interested staff members to research, develop and implement these life-saving standards. Although it may take months to reach your ultimate goal, it is never too late to make improvements. Best of luck with your efforts to ensure the health and safety of your people. They are worth it!

]]>Greek tragedy for firefightersJay LowryMon, 12 Jul 2010 14:35:47 UTCBy Jay Lowry What does the Greek financial crisis that hit the headlines earlier in the summer have to do with fire stations being built?

A great deal. Unlike 20 years ago, we live in a very connected world and the global market is influenced by local events with repercussions felt in cities and towns across the United States.

When Greece received a bailout from the European Union, stocks plummeted in the United States — and didn't stop dropping for a while.

Why should firefighters or EMS care?

There is a steady drum beat for financial reform including pension reform, eliminating deficit spending and reducing salaries. These are local effects of a national and even international problem. NFPA 1710 staffing is being attacked as wasteful and the financial crisis helps those who want to have barebones service.

Some firefighters state this was the worst budget year in history. Not hardly.

In many areas, the big bust will be the 2011-2012 and 2012-2013 budget cycles.

The mood of the country coupled with rising debt, deficit spending, massive entitlement programs and loss of investor confidence will combine to make the current situation look tame.

Warren Buffett is known as the "Oracle of Omaha" because of his financial acumen. Testifying before Congress last month, and in subsequent interviews, Buffett discussed rising concerns over municipal bonds.

He has divested, as have others, in muni-bonds because cities and counties are finding it very hard to make payments. This is very bad news.

All is not lost. Fire and EMS will survive but both must plan for tighter budgets while educating the public on the importance of the services performed.

The economy will rebound eventually but don't expect it to happen soon. Even so, the effects will have consequences for years to come.

]]>By Jay Lowry What does the Greek financial crisis that hit the headlines earlier in the summer have to do with fire stations being built?

A great deal. Unlike 20 years ago, we live in a very connected world and the global market is influenced by local events with repercussions felt in cities and towns across the United States.

When Greece received a bailout from the European Union, stocks plummeted in the United States — and didn't stop dropping for a while.

Why should firefighters or EMS care?

There is a steady drum beat for financial reform including pension reform, eliminating deficit spending and reducing salaries. These are local effects of a national and even international problem. NFPA 1710 staffing is being attacked as wasteful and the financial crisis helps those who want to have barebones service.

Some firefighters state this was the worst budget year in history. Not hardly.

In many areas, the big bust will be the 2011-2012 and 2012-2013 budget cycles.

The mood of the country coupled with rising debt, deficit spending, massive entitlement programs and loss of investor confidence will combine to make the current situation look tame.

Warren Buffett is known as the "Oracle of Omaha" because of his financial acumen. Testifying before Congress last month, and in subsequent interviews, Buffett discussed rising concerns over municipal bonds.

He has divested, as have others, in muni-bonds because cities and counties are finding it very hard to make payments. This is very bad news.

All is not lost. Fire and EMS will survive but both must plan for tighter budgets while educating the public on the importance of the services performed.

The economy will rebound eventually but don't expect it to happen soon. Even so, the effects will have consequences for years to come.

]]>A farewell to volunteer, but not to serviceJason ZigmontMon, 20 May 2013 13:51:32 UTCIt was more than a decade ago that I started VolunteerFD.org to bring together volunteer fire departments to share best practices and solve shared problems. What started as an idea grew into a network of over 25,000 departments sharing their bylaws, fundraising, grants, SOPs, training, and recruitment and retention programs.

In this time I have written more than 100 articles, and this will be my last regular article.

For me, as with many of you, volunteering has been a lifelong passion. My mother jokes that I did my first call about a month before I was born. My father and pregnant mother spent rode out a storm in the firehouse serving food to hundreds were without power or shelter.

I remember growing up in that firehouse, always wanting to be a firefighter; I couldn’t wait to join the explorers at 14. My father was chief, and there was a time when I wanted to be chief also.

A path of learning Since my start in the fire service, I have collected just about every certification I could and spent countless hours listening to "dinosaurs" to learn everything I could about firefighting.

I also earned my paramedic license and spent 8 years in commercial EMS. I thought about being a paid firefighter, but realized that I could make more of an impact teaching others.

That started me on a path that would end in my earning a Ph.D in adult learning with a dissertation being on how paramedics learn.

As with many volunteers, my path in life has taken me away from the fire service. I continue to serve, but am on a slightly different mission.

'You can have everything in life you want' I have found my focus and mission in life, which is to improve healthcare through learning. It may be a hefty goal, but as Zig Ziglar said, "You can have everything in life you want if you just help enough other people get what they want."

I have chosen to dedicate my life to the goal of improving healthcare through learning due to the combination of spending too much time with my mother in the hospital and a chance run-in.

One day I was sitting in the EMS lunchroom when a medic came in all happy and cheery. I asked the medic what happened, and he said, "I've been a medic a year, and I haven't killed anyone yet."

Maybe I was naïve, but I asked the QI person if this was real, and he said, unfortunately, yes. I then asked, "What percentage of the staff would you allow to work on your own family?"

I won’t share that answer here, but needless to say it was so low it set me on a path to improve healthcare for my family and yours.

Luckily I now find myself working for a health system that is truly pioneering and that is just as passionate about improving healthcare as I am. This has taken me more than 600 miles from home and that firehouse I grew up in, but I know it is the right thing to do.

Continued service I no longer volunteer as a firefighter, but I continue to serve. I try to help every department and member that contacts me and I continue to try to share the knowledge at VolunteerFD.org and speak at local and national conferences.

There may come a day when I am back in the volunteer fire service and I will likely start writing again at that time. Until then I leave VolunteerFD.org in the hands of the Praetorian Group and all of the great staff and columnists of the network including FireRescue1 and EMS1.

I also encourage you all to take up the cause of sharing your best practices and solving problems together. If there is one thing I have learned about the volunteer fire service it is that there is always another volunteer who is looking to help, and that is why there will always be a great tradition and service.

If there is ever any way I can help you, please do not hesitate to ask. You can always catch me on LinkedIn.

]]>It was more than a decade ago that I started VolunteerFD.org to bring together volunteer fire departments to share best practices and solve shared problems. What started as an idea grew into a network of over 25,000 departments sharing their bylaws, fundraising, grants, SOPs, training, and recruitment and retention programs.

In this time I have written more than 100 articles, and this will be my last regular article.

For me, as with many of you, volunteering has been a lifelong passion. My mother jokes that I did my first call about a month before I was born. My father and pregnant mother spent rode out a storm in the firehouse serving food to hundreds were without power or shelter.

I remember growing up in that firehouse, always wanting to be a firefighter; I couldn’t wait to join the explorers at 14. My father was chief, and there was a time when I wanted to be chief also.

A path of learning Since my start in the fire service, I have collected just about every certification I could and spent countless hours listening to "dinosaurs" to learn everything I could about firefighting.

I also earned my paramedic license and spent 8 years in commercial EMS. I thought about being a paid firefighter, but realized that I could make more of an impact teaching others.

That started me on a path that would end in my earning a Ph.D in adult learning with a dissertation being on how paramedics learn.

As with many volunteers, my path in life has taken me away from the fire service. I continue to serve, but am on a slightly different mission.

'You can have everything in life you want' I have found my focus and mission in life, which is to improve healthcare through learning. It may be a hefty goal, but as Zig Ziglar said, "You can have everything in life you want if you just help enough other people get what they want."

I have chosen to dedicate my life to the goal of improving healthcare through learning due to the combination of spending too much time with my mother in the hospital and a chance run-in.

One day I was sitting in the EMS lunchroom when a medic came in all happy and cheery. I asked the medic what happened, and he said, "I've been a medic a year, and I haven't killed anyone yet."

Maybe I was naïve, but I asked the QI person if this was real, and he said, unfortunately, yes. I then asked, "What percentage of the staff would you allow to work on your own family?"

I won’t share that answer here, but needless to say it was so low it set me on a path to improve healthcare for my family and yours.

Luckily I now find myself working for a health system that is truly pioneering and that is just as passionate about improving healthcare as I am. This has taken me more than 600 miles from home and that firehouse I grew up in, but I know it is the right thing to do.

Continued service I no longer volunteer as a firefighter, but I continue to serve. I try to help every department and member that contacts me and I continue to try to share the knowledge at VolunteerFD.org and speak at local and national conferences.

There may come a day when I am back in the volunteer fire service and I will likely start writing again at that time. Until then I leave VolunteerFD.org in the hands of the Praetorian Group and all of the great staff and columnists of the network including FireRescue1 and EMS1.

I also encourage you all to take up the cause of sharing your best practices and solving problems together. If there is one thing I have learned about the volunteer fire service it is that there is always another volunteer who is looking to help, and that is why there will always be a great tradition and service.

If there is ever any way I can help you, please do not hesitate to ask. You can always catch me on LinkedIn.